Design Methodology for Biomimetic Propulsion of Miniature Swimming Robots

Miniature and energy efficient propulsion systems hold the key to maturing the technology of swimming microrobots. In this paper, two new methods of propulsion inspired by the motility mechanism of prokaryotic and eukaryotic microorganisms are proposed. Hydrodynamic models for each of the two methods are developed and the optimized design paramteres for each of the two propulsion modes are demonstrated. To validate the theoretical result for the prokaryotic flagellar motion, a scaled up prototype of the robot is fabricated and tested in silicone oil using the Buckingham PI theorem for scaling. The proposed propulsion methods are appropriate for the swimming robots which are intended to swim in low velocity fluids. Keywords–Microrobotics, biomimetic robotics, prokaryotic flagellar motion, eukaryotic flagellar motion. [Final version of paper can be found in ASME Journal of Dynamic Systems and Measurement Control]