MicroPush: A Simulator and Benchmark for Contact-Rich Cell Pushing and Assembly with a Magnetic Rolling Microrobot

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Yang, Yanda, Das, Sambeeta
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Yang, Yanda
Das, Sambeeta
author_facet Yang, Yanda
Das, Sambeeta
contents Magnetic rolling microrobots enable gentle manipulation in confined microfluidic environments, yet autonomy for contact-rich behaviors such as cell pushing and multi-target assembly remains difficult to develop and evaluate reproducibly. We present MicroPush, an open-source simulator and benchmark suite for magnetic rolling microrobots in cluttered 2D scenes. MicroPush combines an overdamped interaction model with contact-aware stick--slip effects, lightweight near-field damping, optional Poiseuille background flow, and a calibrated mapping from actuation frequency to free-space rolling speed. On top of the simulator core, we provide a modular planning--control stack with a two-phase strategy for contact establishment and goal-directed pushing, together with a deterministic benchmark protocol with fixed tasks, staged execution, and unified CSV logging for single-object transport and hexagonal assembly. We report success, time, and tracking metrics, and an actuation-variation measure $E_{Δω}$. Results show that controller stability dominates performance under flow disturbances, while planner choice can influence command smoothness over long-horizon sequences via waypoint progression. MicroPush enables reproducible comparison and ablation of planning, control, and learning methods for microscale contact-rich micromanipulation.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2602_23607
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle MicroPush: A Simulator and Benchmark for Contact-Rich Cell Pushing and Assembly with a Magnetic Rolling Microrobot
Yang, Yanda
Das, Sambeeta
Robotics
Systems and Control
Magnetic rolling microrobots enable gentle manipulation in confined microfluidic environments, yet autonomy for contact-rich behaviors such as cell pushing and multi-target assembly remains difficult to develop and evaluate reproducibly. We present MicroPush, an open-source simulator and benchmark suite for magnetic rolling microrobots in cluttered 2D scenes. MicroPush combines an overdamped interaction model with contact-aware stick--slip effects, lightweight near-field damping, optional Poiseuille background flow, and a calibrated mapping from actuation frequency to free-space rolling speed. On top of the simulator core, we provide a modular planning--control stack with a two-phase strategy for contact establishment and goal-directed pushing, together with a deterministic benchmark protocol with fixed tasks, staged execution, and unified CSV logging for single-object transport and hexagonal assembly. We report success, time, and tracking metrics, and an actuation-variation measure $E_{Δω}$. Results show that controller stability dominates performance under flow disturbances, while planner choice can influence command smoothness over long-horizon sequences via waypoint progression. MicroPush enables reproducible comparison and ablation of planning, control, and learning methods for microscale contact-rich micromanipulation.
title MicroPush: A Simulator and Benchmark for Contact-Rich Cell Pushing and Assembly with a Magnetic Rolling Microrobot
topic Robotics
Systems and Control
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.23607