Two-agent formation control of magnetic microrobots

This paper presents a new method to control multiple micro-scale magnetic agents operating in close proximity to each other for applications in microrobotics. Controlling multiple magnetic microrobots close to each other is difficult due to magnetic interactions between the agents, and here we seek to control those interactions for the creation of desired multi-agent formations. We use the fact that all magnetic agents orient to the global input magnetic field to modulate the local attraction-repulsion forces between nearby agents. Here we study these controlled interaction magnetic forces for agents at a water-air interface and devise two controllers to regulate the inter-agent spacing and heading of the set, for motion in two dimensions. Simulation and experimental demonstrations show the feasibility of the idea and its potential for the completion of complex tasks using teams of microrobots. Average tracking error of less than 73 μm and 14° is accomplished for the regulation of the inter-agent space and the pair heading angle, respectively, for identical disk-shape agents with nominal radius of 500 μm and thickness of 80 μm operating within several body-lengths of each other.