The observations of microorganisms revealed how they swim. As inspired by them, studies on artificial micro-robots with various actuation mechanisms have been thriving. To elucidate the essential concepts in understanding the dynamic behaviors of natural and artificial micro-swimmers—so as to control the latter in future applications, in this paper, we summarize the historical achievements and describe our theoretical perspectives. We first introduce the studies on microorganisms and their propulsion mechanisms. After reviewing the basic principles and the development of the understanding of them, we take the flagellated micro-swimmers as an example to elaborate on the theories of their locomotion. We review the progress in actuation strategies of artificial flagellated micro-swimmers and then propose two possible strategies to realize the turning of a flagellated micro-swimmer—the key step toward steerability through remote fields. Finally, we describe the inadequacies of the investigations on this topic and our perspectives on future developments.

对微生物的观察揭示了它们如何游泳。在他们的启发下，对具有各种驱动机制的人造微型机器人的研究一直在蓬勃发展。为了阐明理解自然和人工微型游泳者的动态行为的基本概念 - 以便在未来的应用中控制后者，在本文中，我们总结了历史成就并描述了我们的理论观点。我们首先介绍对微生物及其推进机制的研究。在回顾了基本原理和对其理解的发展过程之后，我们以有鞭毛的微型游泳者为例，详细阐述了它们的运动理论。我们回顾了人工带鞭毛微型游泳者的驱动策略的进展，然后提出了两种可能的策略来实现带鞭毛微型游泳者的转向——这是通过远程领域实现可操纵性的关键一步。最后，我们描述了关于这个主题的调查的不足之处以及我们对未来发展的看法。