Colloquia

Summary

Untethered Magnetic Robots (UMR) have a possible future in surgical robotics, where they could deliver targeted medicine or carry out mechanical operations, such as opening up an obstructed artery. These UMRs would have to be wirelessly actuated and localized as part of the control system. The actuation was previously carried out with a Rotating Permanent Magnet (RPM) and a novel technique for localization was introduced. This technique, called Magnetic Coupling Localization (MCL), uses a Disturbance Observer (DOB) to estimate the torque imparted on the RPM by the UMR and estimates the position of the UMR. First, we investigate the effects on the accuracy of MCL of scaling down with smaller UMR sizes (12, 8, 5, 3 mm.) Second, we propose a clinical application in the form of data fusion through Kalman Filtering of MCL and localization through Ultrasound (US) to enhance the reliability of the localization of the UMR.