Magnetic actuation methods in bio/soft robotics

Nafiseh Ebrahimi (1) , Chenghao Bi (2) , David Cappelleri (2) , Gastone Ciuti (3) , Andrew T. Conn (4) , Damien Faivre (5) , Neda Habibi (6) , Alexander Hošovský (7) , Veronica Iacovacci (3) , Islam Khalil (8) , Veronika Magdanz (9) , Sarthak Misra (8) , Chytra Pawashe (10) , Rasoul Rashidifar (1) , Paul Eduardo David Soto‐rodriguez (5) , Zoltan Fekete (11) , Amir Jafari (1)

1 UTSA - The University of Texas at San Antonio
2 Purdue University [West Lafayette]
3 The BioRobotics Institute
4 Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Bristol
5 BIAM - Institut de Biosciences et Biotechnologies d'Aix-Marseille (ex-IBEB)
6 Northwest Vista College, San Antonio (TX)
7 TUK - Technical University of Košice
8 University of Twente
9 IBEC - Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia [Barcelona]
10 Intel Corporation [USA]
11 Pázmány Péter Catholic University

In recent years, magnetism has gained an enormous amount of interest among researchers for actuating different sizes and types of bio/soft robots, which can be via an electromagnetic-coil system, or a system of moving permanent magnets. Different actuation strategies are used in robots with magnetic actuation having a number of advantages in possible realization of microscale robots such as bioinspired microrobots, tetherless microrobots, cellular microrobots, or even normal size soft robots such as electromagnetic soft robots and medical robots. This review provides a summary of recent research in magnetically actuated bio/soft robots, discussing fabrication processes and actuation methods together with relevant applications in biomedical area and discusses future prospects of this way of actuation for possible improvements in performance of different types of bio/soft robots.

Domaines: Sciences de l'ingénieur [physics]

Nafiseh Ebrahimi, Chenghao Bi, David Cappelleri, Gastone Ciuti, Andrew T. Conn, et al.. Magnetic actuation methods in bio/soft robotics. Advanced Functional Materials, 2021, 31 (11), pp.2005137. ⟨10.1002/adfm.202005137⟩. ⟨cea-03610634⟩