ArticleScience robotics2019
Microwheels on Microroads: Enhanced Translation on Topographic Surfaces.
Article in Science robotics, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 25 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
25 citing papers in PubMed, 55 citations in OpenAlex.
- Structural Evolution of Biomedical Microrobots: From Rigid to Soft to Rigid-Soft Integrated Systems.Gels (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Reconfigurable Acoustofluidic Microvortices for Selective Microcargo Delivery.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2026Article
- Gear-like MOF microrobots for single cell mechanotransduction of microvilli.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Observation of a backward sliding motion for rollers on surfaces in viscoelastic fluid.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Soft Microbot Traction on Structured Surfaces.Langmuir : the ACS journal of surfaces and colloids · 2025Article
- Propulsion Mechanisms in Magnetic Microrobotics: From Single Microrobots to Swarms.Micromachines · 2025Review
- Robotic Microcapsule Assemblies with Adaptive Mobility for Targeted Treatment of Rugged Biological Microenvironments.ACS nano · 2025Article
- Multiple Magneto-Optical Microrobotic Collectives with Selective Control in Three Dimensions Under Water.Small (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany) · 2024Article
- Article
- Colloidal tubular microrobots for cargo transport and compression.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- Review
- The mismatch between experimental and computational fluid dynamics analyses for magnetic surface microrollers.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Paddlebots: Translation of Rotating Colloidal Assemblies near an Air/Water Interface.Langmuir : the ACS journal of surfaces and colloids · 2023Article
- Rolling of soft microbots with tunable traction.Science advances · 2023Article
- Article
- Review
- Rolling microswarms along acoustic virtual walls.Nature communications · 2022Article
- Reduced rotational flows enable the translation of surface-rolling microrobots in confined spaces.Nature communications · 2022Article
- Dual nature of magnetic nanoparticle dispersions enables control over short-range attraction and long-range repulsion interactions.Communications chemistry · 2022Article
- Multimodal microwheel swarms for targeting in three-dimensional networks.Scientific reports · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Microbot locomotion is challenging because of the reversible nature of microscale fluid flow, a limitation that can be overcome by breaking flowfield symmetry with a nearby surface. We have used this strategy with rotating wheel-shaped microbots, μwheels, that roll on surfaces leading to enhanced propulsion and fast translation speeds. Despite this, studies to date on flat surfaces show that μwheels roll inefficiently with significant slip. Taking inspiration from the mathematics of roads and wheels, here we demonstrate that μwheel velocities can be significantly enhanced by changing microroad topography. In this, we observe that periodic bumps in the road can be used to enhance the traction between μwheels and nearby walls. While continuous μwheel rotation with slip is observed on flat surfaces, a combination of rotation with slip and non-slip flip occurs when μwheels roll upon surfaces with periodic features, resulting in up to four-fold enhancement in translation velocity. The surprisingly fast rolling speed of μwheels on bumpy roads can be attributed to the hydrodynamic coupling between μwheels and road surface features, allowing non-slip rotation of entire wheels along one of their stationary edges. This road/wheel coupling can also be used to enhance μwheel sorting and separation where the gravitational potential energy barrier induced by topographic surfaces can lead to motion in only one direction and to different rolling speeds between isomeric wheels, allowing one to separate them not based on size but on symmetry.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.