Dynamical analysis and steering of three-link microswimmer

Artificial microswimmers find a variety of practical applications in the biomedical area. This paper investigates dynamical analysis and steering of a three-link microswimmer. Starting from deriving analytic expressions of the dynamics, we study basic properties of the system and examine symmetries and their ramifications on the swimming trajectory. Several important symmetric gaits are then discussed. Moreover, we study the steering of microswimmer by formulating it as an optimisation problem and solving it by gradient algorithm. The optimisation results of transversal and longitudinal translations and rotation are discussed, especially those using symmetric gaits. Copyright © 2023 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.