“If you could swallow a surgeon, then surgery would become interesting and simple.” — Richard Feynman
This was the fantasy of Nobel Prize-winning physicist Feynman 60 years ago. Now, the “surgeon” inside the body has become a reality — microrobots.
Remote-controlled microrobots with active steering capabilities have broad prospects in medical applications. Recently, researchers from Beijing Institute of Technology published a study in the Cyborg and Bionic Systems journal.
They proposed a soft microrobot driven by magnetic fields, with a diameter of only 200 μm, which can not only simulate “parkour” in blood vessels with excellent control and steering capabilities but also manipulate microscopic objects!
▍Magnetizing Microrobots to Make Them Move
Making microrobots move is the first step.
This is not easy, as many physical laws in the microscopic world differ from those in the macroscopic world. Objects in narrow micro-scale spaces have strong adhesive forces, making free movement difficult.
The researchers used a magnetic driving method, based on the following principle:
All magnetic objects in a uniform magnetic field experience a torque that aligns their magnetic moment with the direction of the magnetic field.
To magnetize the robot, the researchers combined neodymium-iron-boron particles with soft organic silicon PDMS material to create a soft microrobot, and covered its surface with a layer of biocompatible hydrogel. This not only overcomes the adhesion between the microrobot’s soft tip and the microscopic objects but also reduces friction between the microrobot and the substrate, while minimizing damage to biological targets.
The magnetic driving system consists of a pair of vertical electromagnets,and the microrobot steers and vibrates according to the magnetic field. Because the robot is soft, it can flexibly bend its body, allowing it to steer in complex branching environments.
▍Not Only Can It “Parkour”, But It Also Plays the “Moving Beads” Game
To test whether the microrobot can “parkour” in blood vessels, the researchers created a microfluidic channel with a width of 800 μm using 3D printing technology to test the robot’s steering and movement capabilities in branching pipes.
Throughout the process, different directions of the magnetic field were used to control the microrobot’s steering. Time-varying magnetic fields allowed the microrobot to vibrate, thereby eliminating adhesion with the environment while pushing the front end to move the robot forward.
When the microrobot encounters a fork, the researchers controlled the electromagnets to generate a magnetic field parallel to the target path, directing the microrobot’s tip towards that direction.
It can also manipulate microscopic objects. The researchers designed a “moving beads” game, randomly placing five microbeads in the channel, which also contained several grooves. The microrobot could be controlled by the magnetic field to navigate through the maze and “move” the target beads into the designated grooves, completing the task in just a few minutes. 
▍Further Reducing Size and Improving Precision
In medical applications, microrobots can serve as drug carriers, delivering medication to the required locations in the body, known as “targeted therapy”; they can also act as “scalpels”, directly entering blood vessels to dissolve and remove blood clots, addressing thrombus issues. However, there is still a long way to go before microrobots can be truly applied in vivo.
The soft microrobot developed by researchers at Beijing Institute of Technology can move and turn freely in complex “mazes” and manipulate microscopic objects, demonstrating its significant potential for intravascular operations. In the future, the researchers plan to further reduce the size of the microrobots and improve their control precision.
Paper Link
https://spj.sciencemag.org/journals/cbsystems/2022/9850832/
Citation
Dan Liu, Xiaoming Liu, Zhuo Chen, Zhaofeng Zuo, Xiaoqing Tang, Qiang Huang, Tatsuo Arai, “Magnetically Driven Soft Continuum Microrobot for Intravascular Operations in Microscale”, Cyborg and Bionic Systems, vol. 2022, Article ID 9850832, 8 pages, 2022. https://doi.org/10.34133/2022/9850832
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