Modeling, analysis and design of bio-hybrid micro-robotic swarms for medical applications

Abstract

In this chapter, we present a cyber-physical approach towards the design of bio-hybrid micro-robotic swarms that can achieve various complex tasks atmicrolevel in a minimal invasivemanner, such as abnormal tissue detection and drug delivery in hardly accessible regions of the human body. To this end, we cease to view micro-robots as passive point-like particles, but rather as interactive Turingmachines performing complex biochemical processing, as well as physical interactions in a realistic 3D environment. Our theoretical framework is based on a non-equilibrium statistical physics approach capable of accounting for attraction and repulsion interactions among micro-robots, as well as the volume exclusion effects. To account for biological sensing, interacting, actuation dynamics, and the 3D complex tumor microenvironment, we also use an open-source 3D multiscale simulator specifically developed for this research. Taken together, the theoretical framework and computational platform we develop can enable various design trade-offs of interacting biohybrid micro-robotic swarms for future medical applications.