A Crawling Magnetic Robot Actuated and Steered via Oscillatory Rotating External Magnetic Fields in Tubular Environments

Abstract

We propose a novel crawling magnetic robot and a driving method utilizing an oscillatory rotating external magnetic field. The crawling magnetic robot is composed of an actuating body with a permanent magnet, two steering bodies with permanent magnets, and flexible legs. The proposed crawling magnetic robot can increase actuating torque with long cylindrical magnet to crawl in tubular environments and navigate in pulsatile flow more than conventional spiral robots. The rotating external magnetic field synchronizes the driving plane of the crawling magnetic robot with the oscillating external magnetic field, while the oscillating external magnetic field generates actuating motion in order to stably generate the crawling motion at any posture. Finally, we prototyped the crawling magnetic robot, and verified the effectiveness of the proposed crawling magnetic robot and driving method in various tubular environments.