Medical micro-robots are a long-proposed technology that aims to make treatment both safer and more effective for patients by allowing minimally invasive, controlled access to difficult-to-reach areas of the human body. These microbots show promise for applications such as targeted drug delivery and surgical procedures. One such example is an untethered magnetic robot (UMR) which is capable of being wirelessly guided through fluids of the vascular system, for example, in order to reach and degrade blood clots. They have shown promise for use in the treatment of strokes and aneurysms.
Current control of UMRS relies on precalculated paths along the centerlines of vessels, guided by a rotating permanent magnet (RPM), which causes the UMR to rotate and therefore produce propulsive thrust. The user is only able to control the actuation frequency of the RPM, allowing for speeding up, slowing down and reversing of the UMR along the preplanned path, but the user is unable to make directional adjustments to correct for deviations.
To increase the user's control over the UMR for the expected use case, where it may be crucial to make real-time corrections, a teleoperation framework should be developed for real-time control of the UMR using an input device that is intuitive for this application.