News Article Release

Steering Robots Through Your Blood Vessels? Naval Academy Design Team Looks to Microrobotic Future

June 5, 2012

From Naval Academy Public Affairs

A Naval Academy systems and electrical engineering team took second and third place in the 2012 Mobile Microrobotics Challenge at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation May 14-18 in St. Paul, Minn.

Each competing team had to design and build its own microrobots that could fit within a 500-micrometer virtual cube, a space smaller than the average thickness of a human cornea.

The microrobotics challenge required teams to perform a series of tasks using robots that are so small that the arena is under a microscope. During the first challenge, the microrobot must navigate a prescribed course through a planar track in the fastest possible time. The microassembly event required a microrobot to assemble multiple micro-scale components in a narrow channel. This event simulated manipulation challenges found in in vivo medical applications, such as operation inside a human blood vessel, and assembly-based nano-manufacturing.

Weapons and Systems Engineering Associate Professor Jenelle Piepmeier and Electrical and Computer Engineering Associate Professor Samara Firebaugh led the midshipmen teams in the competition, organized by the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

The microrobotics project is a multidisciplinary capstone midshipmen majoring in systems in electrical engineering.

The midshipmen’s microrobot consisted of a small ferrous metal piece controlled by four electromagnets arranged north, south, east and west around the playing field. The team’s playing field incorporated a thin layer of saline solution on which the microrobot floated. On top of the saline solution and microrobot there is a layer of vegetable oil.

The saline reduced friction - a dominant force at the microscale - while the oil stabilized the movement. The magnets are controlled by a computer interface, said Firebaugh.

The Naval Academy placed third in the first event, which challenged the teams to steer their robots through a figure-eight course in as fast a time as possible. The midshipmen-designed microrobot completed the course in 11.2 seconds.

The team placed second in an event which challenged the teams to use the robots to push 100-micron-long wedges into a geometric shape.

This task was much harder, said Firebaugh.

The academy was one of only two teams who were able to stack two pieces.