A Study on 3D Locomotion of Intravascular Therapeutic Microrobot using EMA System

In this paper, we proposed an intravascular microrobot using an EMA system with bi-plane X-ray fluoroscopy. The proposed EMA system consists of a pair of stationary Helmholtz-Maxwell coils in x-axis and a pair of rotational uniform-gradient saddle coils on x-axis. The microrobot using the EMA system can be aligned to the desired direction by the uniform magnetic field from the Helmholtz-uniform saddle coil pairs and can be propelled to the aligned direction by the uniform gradient magnetic field from the Maxwell-gradient saddle coil pairs. Based on this actuating principle, we developed the microrobot which can move and have a treatment function in blood vessel. For the position recognition of the microrobot, a bi-plane X-ray fluoroscopy was installed in the EMA system. The bi-plane X-ray fluoroscopy can provide frontal and lateral views of mini-pig and the image of the microrobot. In addition, the bi-plane X-ray fluoroscopy can be rotated together with the pair of rotational uniform-gradient saddle coils on x-axis. Through various in-vitro and in-vivo experiments, we could verify the feasibility of the proposed intravascular therapeutic microrobot.