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Electromagnetic actuation methods for intravascular locomotive microrobot
Kyoungrae Cha1, Semi Jeong, Jongho Choi
1Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, Chonnam University, Gwangju, 500-757, Korea. orotham@jnu.ac.kz
Insights
Microrobots offer a promising solution for challenging heart disease treatments like chronic total occlusion. Electromagnetic actuation systems were developed and tested in vitro and in vivo, demonstrating effective microrobot locomotion for intravascular therapies.
Area of Science:
- Cardiovascular Medicine
- Medical Robotics
- Biomedical Engineering
Background:
- Heart diseases are leading global causes of death.
- Current treatments for coronary artery diseases, like percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), face challenges with chronic total occlusions (CTO).
- There is a need for advanced therapies to treat complex coronary artery diseases.
Purpose of the Study:
- To propose and evaluate electromagnetic actuation (EMA) systems for microrobot-assisted intravascular treatment.
- To investigate the potential of microrobots as an alternative therapy for challenging cardiovascular conditions.
- To demonstrate the feasibility of microrobot locomotion in complex environments.
Main Methods:
- Development of various electromagnetic actuation (EMA) systems to power intravascular microrobots.
- Validation of microrobot locomotion performance in 2D and 3D spaces using in-vitro experiments.
- In-vivo testing of microrobot movement in living rabbits to assess real-world applicability.
Main Results:
- Successful demonstration of microrobot locomotion in both 2D and 3D experimental setups.
- Positive in-vivo results showing microrobot navigation capabilities within a living organism.
- Validation of the proposed EMA systems' effectiveness in controlling microrobot movement.
Conclusions:
- Microrobots driven by EMA systems show significant potential for improving intravascular treatments, especially for chronic total occlusions.
- The developed EMA systems are capable of precise microrobot control in complex environments.
- In-vivo validation supports the future clinical application of microrobots in cardiology.
Abstract:
Heart diseases such as angina pectoris and myocardial infarction have been becoming the leading causes of death all over the world in recent years. The pharmacotherapy and the surgical operations have been executed for treating heart problems. The percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) with catheter is frequently used for the treatment of coronary artery diseases, but the treatment of chronic total occlusion (CTO) is very difficult and challenging operation, since there is no efficient alternative therapy until now. For this reason, the microrobot to improve the intravascular treatment is one of the growing research areas. In this paper, various electromagnetic actuation (EMA) systems to supply driving power for the microrobot were proposed. The performance of the locomotion of microrobot in the 2D and 3D space were validated with in-vitro experiments and also the in-vivo tests were performed for demonstrating the movement of microrobot in the living rabbit.
