A Magnetic-Driven Multi-motion Robot with Position/Orientation Sensing Capability

Abstract

Miniature magnetic-driven robots with multimode motions and high-precision pose sensing capacity (position and orientation) are greatly demanded in in situ manipulation in narrow opaque enclosed spaces. Various magnetic robots have been carried out, whereas their deformations normally remain in single mode, and the lack of the robot’s real-time status leads to its beyond-sight remagnetization and manipulation being impossible. The function integration of pose sensing and multimode motion is still of challenge. Here, a multimotion thin-film robot is created in a novel multilayer structure with a magnetic-driven layer covered by a heating-sensing conductive layer. Such a heating-sensing layer not only can segmentally and on-demand heat the magnetic-driven layer for in situ magnetization reprogramming and multimode motions but also can precisely detect the robot’s pose (position and orientation) from its electrical-resistance effect by creating a small deformation under preset magnetic fields. Under the integration of reprogramming and sensing, necessary multimode motions, i.e., swimming, rolling, crawling, and obstacle-crossing, are achieved under a reprogramming field B Repr of 10 mT, and high-precision poses sensing with an accuracy of ± 3 mm in position and ± 2.5° in orientation is obtained even under a low magnetic strength of B Sens of 5 mT, which combined help realize accurate out-of-sight manipulations in the enclosed space environment. Finally, a gastroscope robot for stomach drug delivery has been demonstrated for more gastrointestinal medical treatments.