Robotic burrowing in brain parenchyma tissue

Abstract

Several brain pathologies could take advantage of local delivery of drugs or electrical stimulation for the treatment of tumors or neurological disorders. A self propelling microdevice could reach remote locations and is available for further precision positioning in time, also after months. In this paper we present a study for the locomotion of such a micro-device. The proposed device is built of piezoelectric actuators that create an undulating motion which is capable of propelling the micro-robot in the brain parenchyma. In order to estimate the feasibility of such device we measured the resonant frequencies of an up-scaled actuator in air and brain tissue mimicking gel and found that it can actually burrow into the tissue. An optimally designed actuator is able to produce a maximal propulsive velocity of 25 mm/s and propulsive force of 8.7 mN. Relying on a realistic power consumption of 10 mW will reduce the performance to 1 mm/s and 0.34 mN.