DYNAMIC MODELING AND TRACKING CONTROL OF A SWIMMING MICROROBOT PROPELLED BY TWO PROKARYOTIC FLAGELLA

Swimming microrobots are miniature machines which can be designed and fabricated
using microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) technology. They can play a key role in many
biomedical applications, such as controlled drug delivery, microsurgery, and diseases monitoring.
Many researches have been carried out on micro swimming methodologies. Also, different
propulsion mechanisms have been introduced for 1-DOF microswimmers. The objective of this
work is to study a flagellar microswimmer with controlled maneuvers. The propulsion mechanism
used in our design contains two prokaryotic flagella, rotating into the fluid media, leading to
microrobot movement. In this study, we have tried to focus on dynamic modeling of the motion
proposed for the swimming microrobot. Then, an appropriate control law was developed in order
to control the microrobot maneuvers. The resistive-force theory was used in order to determine the
hydrodynamic force created by the rotary motion of each flagellum into the fluid media. Feedback
linearization method was used to control the motion of microrobot for tracking performance. The
results obtained revealed that microrobot can be controlled in such a way that the desired
maneuver can be performed by applying the designed controller.