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Magnetic liquids called ferrofluids have been used in applications ranging from audio speaker cooling and rotary pressure seals to retinal detachment surgery and implantable artificial glaucoma valves. Recently, ferrofluids have been investigated as a material for use in magnetically controllable liquid droplet robotics. Liquid droplet robotics is an emerging technology

Magnetic liquids called ferrofluids have been used in applications ranging from audio speaker cooling and rotary pressure seals to retinal detachment surgery and implantable artificial glaucoma valves. Recently, ferrofluids have been investigated as a material for use in magnetically controllable liquid droplet robotics. Liquid droplet robotics is an emerging technology that aims to apply control theory to manipulate fluid droplets as robotic agents to perform a wide range of tasks. Furthermore, magnetically controlled micro-robotics is another popular area of study where manipulating a magnetic field allows for the control of magnetized micro-robots. Both of these emerging fields have potential for impact toward medical applications: liquid characteristics such as being able to dissolve various compounds, be injected via a needle, and the potential for the human body to automatically filter and remove a liquid droplet robot, make liquid droplet robots advantageous for medical applications; while the ability to remotely control the torques and forces on an untethered microrobot via modulating the magnetic field and gradient is also highly advantageous. The research described in this dissertation explores applications and methods for the electromagnetic control of ferrofluid droplet robots. First, basic electrical components built from fluidic channels containing ferrofluid are made remotely tunable via the placement of ferrofluid within the channel. Second, a ferrofluid droplet is shown to be fully controllable in position, stretch direction, and stretch length in two dimensions using proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controllers. Third, control of a ferrofluid’s position, stretch direction, and stretch length is extended to three dimensions, and control gains are optimized via a Bayesian optimization process to achieve higher accuracy. Finally, magnetic control of both single and multiple ferrofluid droplets in two dimensions is investigated via a visual model predictive control approach based on machine learning. These achievements take both liquid droplet robotics and magnetic micro-robotics fields several steps closer toward real-world medical applications such as embedded soft electronic health monitors, liquid-droplet-robot-based drug delivery, and automated magnetically actuated surgeries.
ContributorsAhmed, Reza James (Author) / Marvi, Hamidreza (Thesis advisor) / Espanol, Malena (Committee member) / Rajagopalan, Jagannathan (Committee member) / Zhuang, Houlong (Committee member) / Xu, Zhe (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
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Description
Ferrofluidic microrobots have emerged as promising tools for minimally invasive medical procedures, leveraging their unique properties to navigate through complex fluids and reach otherwise inaccessible regions of the human body, thereby enabling new applications in areas such as targeted drug delivery, tissue engineering, and diagnostics. This dissertation develops a

Ferrofluidic microrobots have emerged as promising tools for minimally invasive medical procedures, leveraging their unique properties to navigate through complex fluids and reach otherwise inaccessible regions of the human body, thereby enabling new applications in areas such as targeted drug delivery, tissue engineering, and diagnostics. This dissertation develops a model-predictive controller for the external magnetic manipulation of ferrofluid microrobots. Several experiments are performed to illustrate the adaptability and generalizability of the control algorithm to changes in system parameters, including the three-dimensional reference trajectory, the velocity of the workspace fluid, and the size, orientation, deformation, and velocity of the microrobotic droplet. A linear time-invariant control system governing the dynamics of locomotion is derived and used as the constraints of a least squares optimal control algorithm to minimize the projected error between the actual trajectory and the desired trajectory of the microrobot. The optimal control problem is implemented after time discretization using quadratic programming. In addition to demonstrating generalizability and adaptability, the accuracy of the control algorithm is analyzed for several different types of experiments. The experiments are performed in a workspace with a static surrounding fluid and extended to a workspace with fluid flowing through it. The results suggest that the proposed control algorithm could enable new capabilities for ferrofluidic microrobots, opening up new opportunities for applications in minimally invasive medical procedures, lab-on-a-chip, and microfluidics.
ContributorsSkowronek, Elizabeth Olga (Author) / Marvi, Hamidreza (Thesis advisor) / Berman, Spring (Committee member) / Platte, Rodrigo (Committee member) / Xu, Zhe (Committee member) / Lee, Hyunglae (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023
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Description
A novel underwater, open source, and configurable vehicle that mimics and leverages advances in quad-copter controls and dynamics, called the uDrone, was designed, built and tested. This vehicle was developed to aid coral reef researchers in collecting underwater spectroscopic data for the purpose of monitoring coral reef health. It is

A novel underwater, open source, and configurable vehicle that mimics and leverages advances in quad-copter controls and dynamics, called the uDrone, was designed, built and tested. This vehicle was developed to aid coral reef researchers in collecting underwater spectroscopic data for the purpose of monitoring coral reef health. It is designed with an on-board integrated sensor system to support both automated navigation in close proximity to reefs and environmental observation. Additionally, the vehicle can serve as a testbed for future research in the realm of programming for autonomous underwater navigation and data collection, given the open-source simulation and software environment in which it was developed. This thesis presents the motivation for and design components of the new vehicle, a model governing vehicle dynamics, and the results of two proof-of-concept simulation for automated control.
ContributorsGoldman, Alex (Author) / Das, Jnaneshwar (Thesis advisor) / Asner, Greg (Committee member) / Marvi, Hamidreza (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020