Hard‐Magnetic Soft Millirobots in Underactuated Systems

Hard‐magnetic soft millirobots combine flexible polymer matrices with magnetic particles to achieve precise, remotely controlled deformation and locomotion. Their small size and mechanical compliance enable safe navigation through complex biological environments, offering transformative potential for biomedical applications. This review systematically examines key developments in their design, modeling, and control. We analyze magnetic actuation principles and the underactuation challenges posed by global field control of continuum structures. Various robot architectures, including continuum, sheet‐like, and bioinspired designs, are compared for their motion capabilities. The discussion covers modeling techniques ranging from analytical methods to multiphysics simulations, which have been used to study coupled magnetomechanical behavior. Control strategies ranging from open‐loop programming to adaptive learning‐based approaches are evaluated. The review highlights biomedical applications in targeted therapy, minimally invasive diagnosis, and precision interventions. Finally, we identify critical challenges in materials development, real‐time control, and clinical translation, providing insights for future research directions in this emerging field.

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Publication Details

Journal
Advanced Robotics Research
Published
2025-08-10
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1002/adrr.202500071
Citations
1
Primary Topic
Micro and Nano Robotics
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
1.26

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article

Hard‐Magnetic Soft Millirobots in Underactuated Systems

Bingyan Li, Hongcheng Gu, Zixuan Zhang, Qiong Wang et al.
1 citations
Advanced Robotics Research
Micro and Nano Robotics
1.26
article

Hard‐Magnetic Soft Millirobots in Underactuated Systems

Bingyan Li, Hongcheng Gu, Zixuan Zhang, Qiong Wang, Junkai Wang
article en
1 citations

Abstract

Hard‐magnetic soft millirobots combine flexible polymer matrices with magnetic particles to achieve precise, remotely controlled deformation and locomotion. Their small size and mechanical compliance enable safe navigation through complex biological environments, offering transformative potential for biomedical applications. This review systematically examines key developments in their design, modeling, and control. We analyze magnetic actuation principles and the underactuation challenges posed by global field control of continuum structures. Various robot architectures, including continuum, sheet‐like, and bioinspired designs, are compared for their motion capabilities. The discussion covers modeling techniques ranging from analytical methods to multiphysics simulations, which have been used to study coupled magnetomechanical behavior. Control strategies ranging from open‐loop programming to adaptive learning‐based approaches are evaluated. The review highlights biomedical applications in targeted therapy, minimally invasive diagnosis, and precision interventions. Finally, we identify critical challenges in materials development, real‐time control, and clinical translation, providing insights for future research directions in this emerging field.

Advanced Robotics Research
State Key Laboratory of Digital Medical Engineering (CN), Southeast University (CN)
National Natural Science Foundation of China, Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province
Openalex Percentile: Top 19%
Micro and Nano Robotics
1.26
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