A New Electromagnetic Actuation System with a Highly Accessible Workspace for Microrobot Manipulation

Electromagnetic actuation is a new wireless control approach for the manipulation of magnetic microparticles for various minimally invasive therapies. This article presents an optimal electromagnetic actuation system with an enlarged and accessible workspace, which is obtained by analytical and quantitative modeling of the generated magnetic field of the system. Quantitative modeling aims to characterize the influence of the electromagnet so that the developed system can reach enough magnetic field and gradient. With this design, the workspace of the developed prototype can reach a spherical volume, the magnetic gradient can reach 4 T/m with 10 A of electrical current. The spatial distribution of the electromagnetic field is quantitatively modeled using the finite element method. Our magnetic actuation system allows access to the workspace with a positioning system, the latter will move the patient in the workspace so we can treat the patient zone by zone, which makes it possible to reduce the size of the system. Such as architecture allows efficient manipulation of microparticles in a considerably large 3-D workspace rather than just a small central area. Experiments to manipulate magnetic microrobot in 2-D and 3-D scenarios are carried out to demonstrate the effectiveness of the designed system.