Optimal Actuation of Flagellar Magnetic Micro-Swimmers

Yacine El Alaoui-Faris (1, 2, 3) , Jean-Baptiste Pomet (1, 2) , Stéphane Régnier (3, 4) , Laetitia Giraldi (2, 1)

1 McTAO - Mathematics for Control, Transport and Applications
2 LJAD - Laboratoire Jean Alexandre Dieudonné
3 ISIR - Institut des Systèmes Intelligents et de Robotique
4 Interactions Multi-échelles

We present an automated procedure for the design of optimal actuation for flagellar magnetic microswimmers based on numerical optimization. Using this method, a new magnetic actuation method is provided which allows these devices to swim significantly faster compared to the usual sinusoidal actuation. This leads to a novel swimming strategy which makes the swimmer perform a 3D figure-8 trajectory. This shows that a faster propulsion is obtained when the swimmer is allowed to go out-of-plane. This approach is experimentally validated on a scaled-up flexible swimmer.

Domaines: Robotique [cs.RO]; Automatique / Robotique; Dynamique des Fluides [physics.flu-dyn]

Yacine El Alaoui-Faris, Jean-Baptiste Pomet, Stéphane Régnier, Laetitia Giraldi. Optimal Actuation of Flagellar Magnetic Micro-Swimmers. 2019. ⟨hal-02350868v1⟩