The last decade has seen increasing studies on bacteria and other cells-integrated bio-hybrid microrobot. A major motivation of them is to apply such kind of microsystems into targeted drug delivery system. Although various fabrication techniques have been developed to improve the efficacy of the system, control of the bio- hybrid microrobot is severely understudied, especially at population level. This poses an challenge for further application of the bio-hybrid microrobots, such as targeted drug delivery engineering.
We are developing a new computational framework and physical platform for modeling, analyzing, and designing dense networks of micro-robotic swarms. The physical platform is based on a bio-hybrid micro-robotic approach, in which bacteria serve as on- board actuators. The micro-robots are controlled through passive (e.g. chemical gradients) and active (e.g. magnetic fields) steering mechanisms. Here, we present the first step towards passive control by characterizing the chemotactic behavior of free- swimming bacteria.
