Book Description
Small scale robots are precise end-effectors that can manipulate objects with a high degree of accuracy. Many surgical and on-chip tasks can be performed by manipulating these robots in their dedicated environments. Mobile untethered surgical robots are an attractive research area because of their ability to maneuver inside small and constrained environments and perform tasks that were previously considered infeasible. These robots enable us to make surgery minimally invasive. Surgeons can drill a hole in your skull and insert the tools inside the ventricles from where they can navigate their way to either cut or grasp tissue. Because these robots are too small for electronics and on-board power, they are often actuated remotely using magnetic fields as these field can penetrate most environments and are relatively safe for biological organisms. This makes them an ideal tool to use inside the human body and for on-chip applications. Magnetic tools can be developed and placed inside microfluidic platforms for cell manipulation such as sorting and stimulation. Both on-chip and mobile devices are explored in this thesis focusing on applications related to cell manipulation as well as surgical tools. Specifically, this thesis involves a discussion on the development of a pair of micro-surgical scissors for cutting of soft tissues as well as a magnetically oscillating beam that can be used to apply shear stress to cells and used for cell sorting purposes.