Integrated Design and Decoupled Control of Anchoring and Drug Release for Wireless Capsule Robots
Shuang Song, Sishen Yuan, Fan Zhang, Jingran Su, Dongxu Ye, Jiaole Wang, Max Q.‐H. Meng
Abstract
This article proposes a novel targeted-location drug delivery system for lower gastrointestinal (GI) tract (such as the small intestine) capsule robots. The proposed system takes a “2-in-1” approach that enables both the magnetically actuated anchoring and drug release by using only one internal magnet. The integrated design consists of a magnetically actuated decoupling module, an anchoring module, and a drug release module. The magnetically actuated decoupling module is equipped with two decoupling mechanisms at both ends, which can, respectively, provide one-way rotation for anchoring and drug release functions. The two functions can be decoupled controlled. The anchoring module can simultaneously extend two C-shaped anchoring legs, which can help the capsule anchor at a given position inside the GI tract without damaging it. The drug release module can load 1.6-mL liquid drug and quickly release all the drugs under the control of an external magnet. A capsule robot prototype of the proposed design has been built with 16-mm diameter and 50-mm length. Phantom and <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">in vitro</i> experiments on anchoring and drug release modules have been conducted and have validated the effectiveness of the proposed design and control method.