Tomáš Michálek’s thesis awarded Werner von Siemense Prize 2022
Ph.D. thesis defended by our (now ex) doctoral student Tomáš Michálek in late 2020 was awarded Werner von Siemense Prize 2022 for best thesis in on Industry 4.0 (awarded by Siemens Czech Republic).
The thesis was on Micromanipulation Using Dielectrophoresis: Modeling and Real-Time Optimization-Based Control. It described a novel computational framework for position and orientation control of arbitrarily-shaped microscopic objects using dielectrophoresis. A suitable control-oriented model, that is, evaluable online (in real time) coupling the dielectrophoretic and hydrodynamic effects was derived. It can predict not only the dielectrophoretic force and torque but also the final translational and rotational velocities of micro-objects in a liquid medium. Subsequently, a control structure and model-based computational methods for design of a feedback controller were proposed. Finally, the functionality of the introduced framework was demonstrated in experiments. Discussion of important design and fabrication issues were also included.
