Microbiorobotics: Biologically Inspired Microscale Robotic Systems, Second Edition presents information on a new engineering discipline that takes a multidisciplinary approach to accomplish precise manipulation of microscale spaces. Microorganisms have evolved various mechanisms to thrive in microscale environments and are therefore a useful tool for use in many applications, ranging from micromanufacturing techniques, to cellular manipulation. In the context of microrobotics, biological microrobots can directly harness the microorganisms for propulsive and sensing power and synthetic microrobots can mimic the microorganisms' motions for effective locomotion. This second edition covers new advances and insights that have emerged in recent years. Several new chapters have been added on important new research areas, with existing chapters thoroughly revised. In particular, increased coverage is given to fluid dynamics of microswimmers in nature.

Microbiorobotics is a new engineering discipline that inherently involves a multidisciplinary approach (mechanical engineering, cellular biology, mathematical modeling, control systems, synthetic biology, etc). Building robotics system in the micro scale is an engineering task that has resulted in many important applications, ranging from micromanufacturing techniques to cellular manipulation. However, it is also a very challenging engineering task. One of the reasons is because many engineering ideas and principles that are used in larger scales do not scale well to the micro-scale. For example, locomotion principles in a fluid do not function in the same way, and the use of rotational motors is impractical because of the difficulty of building of the required components.

Microactuation systems are currently enabled only using large external appratus. This essentially defeats the original purpose of miniaturization. We employ flagellated bacteria as reconfigurable actuators in low Reynolds number fluidic environments. The bacteria are self-contained and are able to draw energy directly from the surrounding environment. Furthermore, flagellated bacteria can be utilized as both individual microactuators and in arrays to create useful works in a variety of microfluidic environments, and controlled in a directed manner using many different kinds of external stimuli, such as temperature, food, and a specific wavelength of lights. The book is addressed to professionals in Science and Technology like fluid mechanicians, microbiologists and nanoengineers. It is also directed towards researchers in Microfluidics, Micro/Nanofabrication and Biophyics.