Design and Testing of a Rotational Magnetic System for Driving Helical Swimmer in Circular Duct Environment

This paper presents the design and verification of a rotational magnetic actuation system for driving helical swimmer running in circular duct environment. To mimic the operation in blood vessels, a small-scaled helical swimmer with length less than 7 mm is driven wirelessly by the rotational magnetic system. To achieve an accurate motion tracking in practical complex environment, a model-free controller based on PID strategy is implemented through visual servo control. To evaluate the property of the developed system, the analytical model of the system is established. A prototype of the rotational magnetic system is fabricated for experimental testing. Experimental results indicate that the proposed system is feasible for precise manipulation of the helical micro-swimmer in millimeter scale.