Magnetic motion control and planning of untethered soft grippers using ultrasound image feedback

Abstract

Abstract-Soft miniaturized untethered grippers can be used to manipulate and transport biological material in unstructured and tortuous environments. Previous studies on control of soft miniaturized grippers employed cameras and optical images as a feedback modality. However, the use of cameras might be unsuitable for localizing miniaturized agents that navigate within the human body. In this paper, we demonstrate the wireless magnetic motion control and planning of soft untethered grippers using feedback extracted from B-mode ultrasound images. Results show that our system employing ultrasound images can be used to control the miniaturized grippers with an average tracking error of 0.4±0.13 mm without payload and 0.36±0.05 mm when the agent performs a transportation task with a payload. The proposed ultrasound feedback magnetic control system demonstrates the ability to control miniaturized grippers in situations where visual feedback cannot be provided via cameras.

Design of an Electromagnetic Setup for Independent Three-Dimensional Control of Pairs of Identical and Nonidentical Microrobots

“…Moreover, more efficient tracking algorithms, possibly exploiting the epipolar nature of the cameras, will be investigated. Finally, we will study the development of similar techniques for the control of swarms, as well as the use of clinically compatible imaging systems (such as ultrasound [38]).…”

Magnetic Navigation of a Rotating Colloidal Swarm Using Ultrasound Images

“…The black arrow shows the rotation direction of particle chains and blue arcs refers to the propagation of ultrasound wave. [10], such feedback can be further used for guided rubbing of blood clots [11].…”

Design, characterization and control of thermally-responsive and magnetically-actuated micro-grippers at the air-water interface

“…Microrobotics has the potential to radically reduce the risk and invasiveness of clinical interventions as biopsies, cytoreductions and endarterectomies, as well as cardiac and ophthalmic surgeries [ 1 – 10 ]. In particular, untethered foldable micro-grippers can significantly augment the capabilities of current tethered medical devices for targeted and personalized therapy [ 11 – 14 ].…”

“…Clearly, performance and overall capabilities are also inherently dependent on the micro-gripper design. There are many prior examples how these properties can widely vary from one design concept to another, with grippers offering different trade-offs of specifications as size, velocity, magnetization and grasp reliability [ 1 – 8 , 10 – 14 ]. However, few of these studies have quantitatively analyzed the consequences on performance of variations in single aspects of these designs, such as changes in form-factor, shape and size.…”

“…We previously demonstrated manipulation of soft micro-grippers in an environment with moving obstacles and using ultrasound imaging [ 8 , 10 ]. Here, we aim to push such technology towards navigation inside unpredictable micro-channels at considerably smaller length scales.…”