Effectively simultaneous localized manipulation of multiple magnetic beads

The ability to simultaneously manipulate multiple magnetic particle (or beads) opens up new opportunities in conducting large-scale studies involving multiple biological objects. In this paper we present the development of two control schemes, namely PI control with an arbitrary control sequence and optimal control with a selected control sequence, for simultaneous position-regulation of magnetic beads under disturbances. A set of simulation studies were conducted in COMSOL to examine the effectiveness of the PI control, while a numerical simulation was carried out in MATLAB to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed optimal control in dealing with a more complex situation that was modeled as a switched LQR problem. Particle Tracing Module for COMSOL was implemented to model the bead-fluid interaction during simulations. The results show the feasibility of both schemes in coordinated regulation of bead positions.