Wireless Actuation of Magnetic Robots with a Modular 60 mT 3-D Helmholtz Coil System
This paper presents the modeling and design of a three-dimensional (3-D) Helmholtz coil system for wireless control of magnetically actuated robots. Instead of using moving permanent magnets to generate the external magnetic field needed for magnetic actuation, driving a set of stationary Helmholtz coils with power electronics offers enhanced control flexibility and precision through active feedback. A modular drive is developed to operate the custom pulsed 15 kW 60 mT 3-D Helmholtz coil setup. A method for modeling the generated magnetic field is developed to enable the precise motion control of untethered robots. The prototype system is verified by precisely actuating a magnetized cubic robot.
Authors
- Tuo Zhao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6004-8602)
- Gláucio H. Paulino (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3493-6857)
- Yifan Rao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3949-4004)
- Daniel H. Zhou (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1138-0892)
- Clark T.‐C. Nguyen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5694-5212)
- Konstantinos Manos (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0005-0340-4865)
- Kevin Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0942-6513)
- Minjie Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0705-563X)
- Eric Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4090-0308)
Institutions
- Princeton University (US)
Publication Details
- Published
- 2025-03-16
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1109/apec48143.2025.10977109
- Primary Topic
- Modular Robots and Swarm Intelligence
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00