Individual closed-loop control of micromotors by selective light actuation
Date
2024-11-11
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Soft Matter
Abstract
Control of individual micromotors within a group would allow for improved efficiency, greater ability to accomplish complex tasks, higher throughput, and increased adaptability. However, independent control of micromotors remains a significant challenge. Typical actuation techniques, such as chemical and magnetic, are uniform over the workspace and therefore cannot control one micromotor independently of the others. To address this challenge, we demonstrate a novel control method of applying a localized region of UV light that activates a single light-responsive TiO2 micromotor at a time. To achieve this, a digital micromirror device (DMD) was employed which is capable of highly precise localized illumination. To demonstrate this precise user-defined control, patterns of micromotors were created via selective actuation and magnetic steering. In addition, a closed-loop system was also developed which automates the guidance of individual micromotors to specified locations, illustrating the potential for more efficient and precise control of the micromotors.
Description
This article was originally published in Soft Matter. The version of record is available at: https://doi.org/10.1039/D4SM00810C.
This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry.
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported Licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/).
Keywords
Citation
Rivas, David P., Max Sokolich, and Sambeeta Das. “Individual Closed-Loop Control of Micromotors by Selective Light Actuation.” Soft Matter 20, no. 48 (2024): 9523–27. https://doi.org/10.1039/D4SM00810C.