Long-Distance Autonomous Navigation of Optical Microrobotic Swarms in Complex Environments

Abstract

The local force field generated by light endows optical microrobots with remarkable flexibility and adaptivity, promising significant advancements in precise medicine and cell transport. Nevertheless, the automated navigation of multiple optical microrobots in intricate, dynamic environments over extended distances remains a challenge. Herein, a versatile control strategy aimed at navigating optical microrobotic swarms to distant targets under obstacles of varying sizes, shapes, and velocities is introduced. By confining all microrobots within a manipulation domain, swarm integrity is ensured while mitigating the effects of Brownian motion. Obstacle's elliptical approximation is developed to facilitate efficient obstacle avoidance for microrobotic swarms. Additionally, several supplementary functions are integrated to enhance swarm robustness and intelligence, addressing uncertainties such as swarm collapse, particle immobilization, and anomalous laser–obstacle interactions in real microscopic environments. We further demonstrate the efficacy and versatility of our proposed strategy by achieving autonomous long-distance navigation to a series of targets. This strategy is compatible with both optical trapping- and nudging-based microrobotic swarms, representing a significant advancement in enabling optical microrobots to undertake complex tasks such as drug delivery and nanosurgery and understanding collective motions.