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Updated: May 21, 2026

Magnetically-Assisted Remote Controlled Microcatheter Tip Deflection under Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Published on: April 4, 2013
Magnetic dipole with a flexible tail as a self-propelling microdevice
Rūdolfs Livanovičs1, Andrejs Cēbers
1University of Latvia, Zeļļu-8, Rīga, LV-1002, Latvia.
Abstract:
By numerical simulations, it is illustrated that a magnetic dipole with a flexible tail behaves as a swimmer in AC magnetic fields. The behavior of the swimmer on long time scales is analyzed and it is shown that due to the flexibility of the tail two kinds of torques arise, the first is responsible for the orientation of the swimmer perpendicularly to the AC field and the second drags the filament in the direction of the rotating field. Due to this, circular trajectories of the swimmer are possible; however, these are unstable. The self-propulsion velocity of this swimmer is higher than the velocities of other magnetic microdevices for comparable values of the magnetoelastic number.
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