Inspired by swimming micro organisms, swimming micro/nano robots (SM/NR) hold great potential in medical applications and microfluidics research. Applications are many: targeted drug delivery, minimally invasive surgery, gene therapy, diagnosis, and as manipulative agents in microsystems such as lab-on-a-chip devices. Our research aims to develop controllable navigation of SM/NR with helical tails in confinements. We design and manufacture millimeter-scale robots with the 3D printing technology. The swimmers are propelled by rotating magnetic fields inside channels filled with viscous fluids to ensure physical similarity with the micro swimming conditions from fluid mechanics point of view. Experiments are conducted to obtain the positions, trajectories, velocities and orientations of the swimmer. In addition to experimental studies, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) models are developed to study the flow field around the swimmer, and for simulation experiments.
NEWS
- Dr. Mustafa Koz, our MSc graduate, has been accepted for a model-based development engineering position at Carrier’s Heat Transfer group.Read more…
- Ebru Demir, our PhD student, has been nominated for the Best Student Paper Award in the upcoming International Conference on Manipulation, Automation and Robotics at Small Scales, MARSS2018. Read more…
- Our former graduate, Dr. Fatma Zeynep Temel, is now an Assistant Professor in the Robotics Institute at the Carnegie Mellon University. Read more…
- Ebru Demir, our PhD student, won Three Minute Thesis (3MT) 2018 competition at Sabanci University. Read more…
- Asst. Prof. Ahmet Fatih Tabak, our former graduate is now a faculty member at Okan University in Mechatronics Engineering Department.
- Dr. Alperen Acemoğlu, our former MSc. graduate is now working as a post-doctoral researcher at Istituto Italiano di Technologia (IIT). He is working on robotic-assisted surgical systems.