Achievement

IGERT student Art Mahoney has developed a method to control magnetic helical microrobots using a rotating-permanent-magnet manipulator. He has shown that, by rotating the permanent magnet with a specific nonconstant trajectory, he can cause the usually attractive magnetic force to be converted into a lateral pushing force that can contribute to the microrobots propulsion. The result is quite unintuitive and only works dynamically, but it has been shown analytically and experimentally verified. The results will be submitted soon to Applied Physics Letters. The technology will be applied to next-generation capsule endoscopy systems that have the potential to fundamentally change the nature of how colonoscopies are done.