A magnetic minirobot with anchoring and drilling ability in tubular environments actuated by external magnetic fields

Abstract

We propose a magnetic minirobot with anchoring and drilling ability (MMAD) controlled by an external magnetic field. The proposed MMAD can navigate through a tubular environment, such as human blood vessels, actuated by a magnetic gradient and uniform rotating magnetic field. It can also generate an anchoring motion, which stably holds the position of the MMAD under pulsatile flow, in order to drill and unclog obstructed blood vessels. The operating conditions of the MMAD were examined by investigating the magnetic torques, and the holding force of the MMAD was measured by a force sensing resistor. Finally, we performed various experiments in a tubular environment to verify the validity of the proposed MMAD.