InTarget: An intelligent signature for magnetic control

到2040年，全球每年将有2750万人死于癌症。目前的癌症治疗选择包括手术干预、化疗、放射治疗或这些选择的组合。随着达芬奇手术机器人被用于微创肿瘤切除(全球临床使用6000台，wchh.onlinelibrary.wiley.com)，机器人辅助干预已经达到成熟水平，可以在抗击癌症的斗争中发挥重要作用。目前医疗机器人的发展趋势是设备小型化。这是通过无线传输电力来实现的。过去几年，微型机器人(微米/纳米级)执行血管内干预，如药物输送(例如，长度为200微米的微蜂群)。虽然磁致动是最受欢迎的无线能量传输方式之一，但磁场会同时影响所有的微型机器人。由于微型机器人接受相同的驱动输入，单个或集体引导是具有挑战性的。在许多应用中，包括用于癌症治疗的靶向药物/干细胞输送，我们需要引导一个微群-即药物载体的集合(例如，药物包裹的磁性纳米颗粒(MNPs))。磁场同时影响微群中的所有磁性粒子，使得微型机器人的精确捕获和操纵具有挑战性。我们将开发一个机器人体系结构，使用智能磁场(基于数据驱动的方法设计)在感兴趣的区域内控制多域(控制不同区域的场)中的磁场。因此，微型机器人可以单独控制，这使得集体控制成为可能。我们还将演示该技术在微群捕获应用程序(InTarget)中的适应性。捕获微蜂群可导致体内深层区域靶向(例如，靶向无法手术的脑瘤)。

Cancer will claim 27.5 million lives worldwide annually by 2040 (cancerresearchuk.org). Current cancer treatment options include surgical intervention, chemotherapy, radiation therapy or a combination of these options. With Da Vinci surgical robots, which, amount other things, are used for minimally invasive tumour removal (6000 units in clinical use worldwide, wchh.onlinelibrary.wiley.com), robotics-assisted interventions have reached a maturity level to play an instrumental role in the fight against cancer. The current trend in medical robotics is toward device miniaturization. This is achieved by wireless transmission of power. Last few years, miniaturized robots (micro/nanoscale) performed endovascular interventions like drug delivery (e. g. microswarms with 200-micrometre lengths). Although magnetic actuation is one of the favoured wireless power transmission methods, the magnetic field affects all microrobots simultaneously. As the microrobots receive the same actuation input, individual or collective steering is challenging.In many applications, including targeted drug/stem cell delivery for cancer treatment, we need to steer a microswarm - that is, a collection of drug carriers (e.g., drug-coated magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs)). A magnetic field affecting all magnetic particles in the microswarm simultaneously makes precise capturing and steering of the microrobots challenging. We will develop a robotics architecture to control the magnetic field in multi-domains (controlling fields in different areas) within a region of interest using an intelligent magnetic field (designed based on a data-driven approach). Therefore, the microrobots can be controlled individually, which makes collective control possible. We will also demonstrate the adaptation of this technology to microswarm capturing applications (InTarget). Capturing microswarm can lead to deep region targeting within the body (e.g. targeting inoperable brain tumours).