Microbiorobotics

Microbiorobotics

by Minjun Kim, Edward Steager, Julius Agung
Released March 2012
Publisher(s): William Andrew
ISBN: 9781455778942

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Book description

Microbiorobotics is a new engineering discipline that inherently involves a multidisciplinary approach (mechanical engineering, cellular biology, mathematical modeling, control systems, synthetic biology, etc). Building robotics system in the micro scale is an engineering task that has resulted in many important applications, ranging from micromanufacturing techniques to cellular manipulation. However, it is also a very challenging engineering task. One of the reasons is because many engineering ideas and principles that are used in larger scales do not scale well to the micro-scale. For example, locomotion principles in a fluid do not function in the same way, and the use of rotational motors is impractical because of the difficulty of building of the required components.



  • Microrobotics is an area that is acknowledged to have massive potential in applications from medicine to manufacturing. This book introduces an inter-disciplinary readership to the toolkit that micro-organisms offer to micro-engineering.

  • The design of robots, sensors and actuators faces a range of techology challenges at the micro-scale. This book shows how biological techniques and materials can be used to meet these challenges.

  • World-class multi-disciplanry editors and contributors leverage insights from engineering, mathematical modeling and the life sciences – creating a novel toolkit for microrobotics.

Table of contents

  1. Cover Image
  2. Table of Contents
  3. Title
  4. Front Matter
  5. Copyright
  6. Preface
  7. Acknowledgements
  8. About the Editors
  9. PART 1. Introduction
    1. Motivation for Microbiorobotics
    2. Historical Overview
      1. Low Reynolds number swimming
      2. Taxis of microorganisms
      3. Artificial bio-inspired microrobots
      4. Biological microrobots
      5. Conclusion
    3. About this Book
      1. Theory
      2. Experiments
  10. PART 2. Fundamentals of Cellular Mechanics
    1. Chapter 1. Fluid–Structure Interactions and Flagellar Actuation
      1. 1.1 Introduction
      2. 1.2 Hydrodynamics of slender filaments
      3. 1.3 Elastic forces in slender filaments
      4. 1.4 Swimming velocity of bacterium with helical flagellum
      5. 1.5 Fluid–structure interactions in bacterial flagella
      6. 1.6 Flagella in viscoelastic fluids
      7. 1.7 Fluid–structure interaction in eukaryotic flagella
      8. 1.8 Probing dynein coordination using models of spontaneous flagellar beating
    2. Chapter 2. Mathematical Models for Individual Swimming Bacteria
      1. 2.1 Introduction
      2. 2.2 The biological, mathematical, and numerical background
      3. 2.3 A selective survey of recent progress in modeling applications
      4. 2.4 Future perspectives
      5. Acknowledgements
    3. Chapter 3. Tetrahymena Pyriformis in Motion
      1. 3.1 Introduction
      2. 3.2 Tetrahymena as a model cell
      3. 3.3 Migratory responses in biology
      4. 3.4 Specific signaling pathways
      5. 3.5 Microbiorobotics in Tetrahymena
      6. 3.6 Migration-specific phenomena
      7. 3.7 Strategies in migration assays in Tetrahymena
      8. 3.8 Concluding remarks
      9. Acknowledgements
  11. PART 3. Theoretical Microbiorobotics
    1. Chapter 4. Broadcast Control for a Large Array of Stochastically Controlled Piezoelectric Actuators
      1. 4.1 Introduction
      2. 4.2 Cellular control system inspired by biological muscles
      3. 4.3 Piezoelectric actuator cells with large strain amplification
      4. 4.4 Stochastic broadcast feedback
      5. 4.5 Fingerprint method for modeling and characterizing stochastic actuator arrays
      6. 4.6 Conclusion
      7. Acknowledgments
    2. Chapter 5. Stochastic Models and Control of Bacterial Bioactuators and Biomicrorobots
      1. 5.1 Stochasticity in the cellular behavior of bacteria
      2. 5.2 Mathematical models for stochastic cellular behavior
      3. 5.3 Stochasticity in the flagellated bacteria motility
      4. 5.4 Modeling and control of MicroBioRobots
      5. 5.5 Model for electrokinetic actuation
      6. 5.6 Concluding remarks
      7. Acknowledgements
    3. Chapter 6. Biological Cell Inspired Stochastic Models and Control
      1. 6.1 Introduction
      2. 6.2 Swarm robotics and models
      3. 6.3 Immune system cell motility
      4. 6.4 Hamiltonian approach to open-loop stochastic control
      5. 6.5 Summary
  12. PART 4. Experimental Microbiorobotics
    1. Chapter 7. Bacteria-Inspired Microrobots
      1. 7.1 Introduction
      2. 7.2 Fluid mechanics at low Reynolds numbers
      3. 7.3 Bacterial swimming
      4. 7.4 Actuation of artificial bacterial microrobots
      5. 7.5 Swimming behavior
      6. 7.6 Artificial bacterial microrobot in biomedical applications
    2. Chapter 8. Magnetotactic Bacteria for Microrobotics
      1. 8.1 Introduction
      2. 8.2 MC-1 flagellated magnetotactic bacteria (MTB)
      3. 8.3 Magnetotactic bacteria as microrobots
      4. 8.4 Magnetotaxis versus aerotaxis control
      5. 8.5 Natural, bacterial, or MTB-based microrobots versus artificial bacteria-inspired microrobots
      6. 8.6 Applications in microassembly
      7. 8.7 Applications in medical interventions
      8. 8.8 Conclusions
      9. Acknowledgements
    3. Chapter 9. Flexible Magnetic Microswimmers
      1. 9.1 Introduction
      2. 9.2 Swimming at low Reynolds number
      3. 9.3 Flexible magnetic filaments
      4. 9.4 Colloidal swimmers
      5. 9.5 Conclusion
    4. Chapter 10. Bacteria-Powered Microrobots
      1. 10.1 Introduction
      2. 10.2 Methods
      3. 10.3 Control of microbiorobots
      4. 10.4 Microbiorobots for manipulation and sensing
      5. 10.5 Conclusions
    5. Chapter 11. Control of Tetrahymena pyriformis as a Microrobot
      1. 11.1 Introduction
      2. 11.2 Galvanotaxis Tetrahymena pyriformis
      3. 11.3 Phototaxis of Tetrahymena pyriformis
      4. 11.4 Magnetotaxis of Tetrahymena pyriformis
      5. 11.5 Real-time feedback control system for magnetotactic Tetrahymena pyriformis
  13. Perspectives and Outlook
  14. Index

Product information

  • Title: Microbiorobotics
  • Author(s): Minjun Kim, Edward Steager, Julius Agung
  • Release date: March 2012
  • Publisher(s): William Andrew
  • ISBN: 9781455778942