Steering, Tunneling, and Stent Delivery of a Multifunctional Magnetic Catheter Robot to Treat Occlusive Vascular Disease

A multifunctional magnetic catheter robot (MCR) is proposed in this article to treat occlusive vascular disease by generating steering, tunneling, and stent delivery motions. Using external magnetic fields generated by a closed-loop magnetic navigation system, the MCR can be manipulated remotely and can generate each motion by magnetic manipulation methods. The MCR has novel structures with a magnetic joint and tension springs for selective stent delivery. Constraints and a dynamic model are derived to specify the manipulation conditions for the selective treatment motions and design parameters of the MCR. Then, the MCR is prototyped, and the steering, tunneling, and stent delivery motions are verified by several experiments. Finally, an in vitro experiment with a pseudo blood clot is conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of the MCR and its motions for the treatment of occlusive vascular disease.