A Touch-Communication Framework for Drug Delivery Based on a Transient Microbot System

Abstract

Recent progress in bioresorbable radio frequency electronics and engineered bacteria has promised the prospect of realizing a transient microbot (TM) system for therapeutic applications. The inorganic or organic miniature robots will dissolve into the human body after completing the required tasks and cause no side-effect. In this paper, we propose a potential architecture of a TM system for transporting pharmaceutical compounds inside the body, and analyze the system using a micro-to-macro cross-scale communication model. The remote controllability and tangibility of a TM essentially lead to a touch-communication (TouchCom) paradigm. Externally maneuverable and trackable TMs are responsible for the delivery of drug particles (information molecules in the TouchCom context). The loading/injection and unloading of the drug correspond to the transmitting and receiving processes in the TouchCom framework. Subsequently, we investigate simulation tools for the propagation and transient characteristics of TMs in the blood vessels. We also define the propagation delay, path loss, as well as angular and delay spectra of targeting intensity, which are parallel to their counterpart concepts in the conventional wireless channel. Finally, our approach is illustrated with comprehensive simulation studies of targeted drug delivery by using the proposed analytical framework integrating robotics and communications at crossover length scales. The proposed methodology may find important applications in the design and analysis of TM-assisted administration of pharmaceutical compounds.

Channel Modeling for Diffusive Molecular Communication—A Tutorial Review

“…Nevertheless, for system design, it is desirable to have simple yet sufficiently accurate analytical models for complex multi-node networks. Developing such analytical models constitutes an important future research topic, see [153], [42], [143], [75] for some related works.…”

A Comprehensive Study on Design Trends and Future Scope of Implantable Drug Delivery Systems

“…The system can be investigated for patients" safety. The architecture of a Touch communication model based on Transient Microbot for targeted drug delivery is proposed in [17]. Various parameters associated with Transient Microbot like delay, angle of arrival, path loss, delay spectrum are investigated for information exchange.…”

Green Touchable Nanorobotic Sensor Networks

“…Various random walk models for different molecular propagation scenarios have been discussed in [11]. In [12], a velocity- 2) Fractal-Based Statistical Model: The pathway of nanorobots may also be described using the fractal-based statistical model [8], which characterizes the movement of nanorobots in a vascular tree when the capillaries can be imaged. Firstly, the vascular network distributes the blood stream through the human body by successive bifurcations, which can be described by a fractal model due to the self-similar character of a bifurcating tree.…”

“…Secondly, the hemodynamic response leads to increased cross-sectional areas of blood flow, which results in blood velocity low enough for the exchange of metabolic substances across the capillary wall. The hemodynamics explains the empirical Murray's laws that characterize the connection between the diameter of the parent segment and the diameters of two daughter branches at each bifurcating node [8]. The angle between two daughter vessels after division and the lengths of the vessels are also determined by the Murray's formula.…”

“…The angle between two daughter vessels after division and the lengths of the vessels are also determined by the Murray's formula. Finally, when the microvasculature becomes angiographically unresolvable, it may be simplified as a structureless fluid medium and the velocity-jump random walk mentioned above may be used to describe the pathway of nanorobots as suggested in [8].…”