An Integrated System for Wireless Capsule Endoscopy in a Liquid-Distended Stomach

Abstract

The design and development of a functional integrated system for gastroscopy is reported in this paper. The device takes advantage of four propellers enabling locomotion in a liquid environment and generating a maximum propulsive force of 25.5 mN. The capsule has been equipped with a miniaturized wireless vision system that acquires images with a frame rate of 30 fps (frames per second). The overall size of the capsule is 32 mm in length and 22 mm in diameter, with the possibility of decreasing the diameter to swallowable dimensions. The capsule is remotely controlled by the user who can intuitively drive the device by looking at the video streaming on the graphical interface. The average speed of the device is 1.5 cm/s that allows for a fine control of the capsule motion as demonstrated in experimental tasks consisting of passing through circular targets. The video system performances have been characterized by evaluating the contrast, the focus, and the capability of acquiring and perceiving different colors. The usability of the device has been tested on bench and on explanted tissues by three users in real time target-identification tasks, in order to assess the success of the integration process. The lifetime of the capsule with active motors and vision system is 13 min, that is, a timeframe consistent with traditional gastroscopic examinations.

Innovations Leading Capsule Endoscopy into the New Frontier: Screening and Therapy at Home

“…There have been very few reports on the transmission of different wireless frequencies through the human body, though a few researchers [8] have used data based on the electric characteristics of tissues (fat, blood, muscle) to estimate the transmission properties of wireless frequencies in the human body. However, more than one factor needs to be considered when deciding which frequency is the most suitable for wireless communication between a transmitter inside the body and an external receiver.…”

“…a) E-mail: hideohta@true.ocn.ne.jp DOI: 10.1587/transcom.E98.B.526 extracorporeal magnetic control [1]- [7] and the second is wireless (radio) control [8]- [10]. The former utilizes the interactive forces between a small magnet in or over the capsule endoscope and the magnetic field generated extracorporeally.…”

SMAC — A Modular Open Source Architecture for Medical Capsule Robots

“…Other examples of MCRs published so far that can be implemented via the SMAC approach range from WCEs, which can swim in a water-filled stomach [10,15,49,50], or crawl inside a colon [16,27,51], or be manipulated by external magnetic fields inside the GI tract [18,[52][53][54], or perform advanced imaging [40,55,56], or execute a therapeutic function inside the intestine [11,13,57]. The modular robotic endoscope for colonoscopy recently reported in [12] can also be implemented via SMAC.…”

“…De Falco et al, [10]  X X X X X Valdastri et al, [50]  X X X X X Valdastri et al, [27]  X X X X X Simi et al, [16]  X X X X X Chen et al, [51]  X X X X X Ciuti et al, [52]   X X X X Ciuti et al, [18]   X X X X Yim et al, [53]  X X X X X…”

Inductive-Based Wireless Power Recharging System for an Innovative Endoscopic Capsule

“…However, commercially available pills are limited to screening and are purely passive devices that rely on peristalsis for the propulsion onto important medical target areas, such as the esophagus, stomach, small bowel and colon. In the last decade, many solutions have been explored to embed active locomotion mechanisms onto these devices and allow accurate and controlled navigation [3][4][5][6][7].…”