When a Micro-Robot Encounters a Bowel Lesion

目前，肠癌的检测是通过在内窥镜检查过程中对结肠粘膜进行肉眼检查来进行的，对于不易观察到的小病变来说，这是不太可靠的。如果在早期阶段没有发现并移除它们，它们就有可能癌变。该项目旨在开发一种新的数学工具，用于分析微型机器人的传感能力，以帮助检测难以想象的肠道病变。经历振动、摩擦和碰撞的微型机器人被称为非光滑系统，对于给定的参数集，它们表现出丰富的不同的长期行为，这被称为多稳定或共存吸引子。当机器人在结肠中移动并遇到病变时，一些特定的吸引子可能会主导其动力学，而其他共存的吸引子可能会由于组织的机械特性与不同阶段的恶性转化相关而消失。这种多重稳定性的显著变化可以用来区分健康和异常组织。申请人建议首次利用机器人的多重稳定性，通过发展最先进的数值技术来分析这种机器人与病变的相关性，并产生一套用于癌症检测和分期的计算分析和先进控制方法。从长远来看，这项工作将开创一种新的肠癌筛查方法，为患者提供一种有效的微创手术。该项目独特的研究方法、数值和实验研究的共同努力，以及与一名应用数学家和两名NHS胃肠病专家的研究合作，将确保英国在应用非光滑动力学、微型机器人和早期癌症诊断方面的全球领先地位。

Detection of bowel cancer is currently performed by visual inspection of the colonic mucosa during endoscopy, which is less reliable for small-sized lesions that are not easily visualised. If they are not detected and removed at an early stage, there is a chance that they may become cancerous. This project seeks to develop a new mathematical tool for analysing the sensing capability of micro-robots to aid the detection of hard-to-visualise bowel lesions. Micro-robots experiencing vibrations, frictions, and impacts, known as non-smooth systems, exhibit a rich variety of different long-term behaviours co-existing for a given set of parameters, which is referred to as multi-stability or co-existing attractors. When the robot moves in the colon and encounters a lesion, some particular attractor may dominate its dynamics, while the other co-existing attractors could fade away due to the tissue's mechanical properties associated with different stages of malignant transformation. This significant change in multi-stability can be utilised to distinguish between healthy and abnormal tissues. The applicant proposes to use for the first time robot's multi-stability through the development of state-of-the-art numerical techniques to analyse such robot-lesion correlation, and produce a suite of computational analysis and advanced control methods for cancer detection and staging. In the long term, this work will initiate a new modality for bowel cancer screening, delivering an efficient minimally invasive procedure for patients. The unique research approach of this project, a joint effort of numerical and experimental studies, and the research collaboration with an applied mathematician and two NHS gastroenterologists, will secure a leading global position for the UK in applied non-smooth dynamics, micro-robots and early cancer diagnosis.