CAREER: Nonuniform-Magnetic-Field Control of Medical Microrobots

导航人体自然路径的磁性微型机器人有可能彻底改变微创医学和生物医学研究。当前的磁操纵系统利用大质量磁体在相对小的区域上产生均匀的磁场。均匀磁场用于简化控制，但这种简化的控制需要巨大的成本，并且很难将大多数实验室场产生系统扩展到临床使用所需的尺寸。使用非均匀磁场使得可以将磁体放置得更靠近患者，这允许使用更小、更便宜的磁体，同时提高系统可以提供的可致动自由度和力水平。正在测试的假设是，使用非均匀磁场无线控制医疗微型机器人的结果在上级系统？在尺寸、成本和性能方面的优势？与使用均匀场相比。这项研究包括两个方面：控制磁性尖端连续微型机器人，在难以到达的位置提供远端灵活性，以及控制完全不受束缚的磁性螺旋微型机器人，使用细菌鞭毛启发的方法在液体，管腔和软组织中游泳和爬行。了解如何使用非均匀磁场进行无线控制可能是将几乎所有先前开发的微型机器人推进方法转化为临床实践的关键。磁性微型机器人可能是部署近年来设计的众多BioMEMS设备和磁性传感器和执行器的理想平台。

Magnetic microrobots that navigate the natural pathways of the body have the potential to revolutionize minimally invasive medicine and biomedical research. Current magnetic manipulation systems utilize massive magnets to produce a uniform magnetic field over a relatively small area. Uniform magnetic fields are used to simplify control, but this simplified control comes at a huge cost, and it is difficult to scale up most laboratory field-generation systems to the size required for clinical use. The use of nonuniform magnetic fields makes it possible to place magnets nearer to the patient, which permits the use of smaller, less-expensive magnets, while simultaneously improving actuatable degrees of freedom and force levels that systems can render. The hypothesis being tested is that using nonuniform magnetic fields to wirelessly control medical microrobots results in superior systems?in terms of size, cost, and performance?compared to using uniform fields. This research consists of two thrusts: control of magnetically tipped continuum microrobots, which provide distal dexterity in hard-to-reach locations, and control of fully untethered magnetic helical microrobots, which swim and crawl through fluids, lumens, and soft tissue using a method inspired by bacterial flagella. Understanding how to use nonuniform magnetic fields for wireless control may be the key to translating nearly every previously developed method for microrobot propulsion into clinical practice. Magnetic microrobots may be the ideal platform from which to deploy the numerous BioMEMS devices and magnetic sensors and actuators that have been designed in recent years.