A Multichannel Continuum Robot for <i>In Situ</i> Diagnosis and Treatment of Vascular Lesions

Abstract

In recent years, continuum soft robots have emerged as a promising avenue for the advancement of in vivo therapeutic interventions. However, the current continuum robots are often limited to singular functionalities and exhibit a deficiency in diagnostic capabilities for vascular lesions. For example, vasculitis often leads to temperature abnormalities in local blood vessels, and the existing continuum robots are unable to accurately detect the lesion area based on this characteristic. To address this issue, this paper presents the design of a multifunctional integrated thermally drawn polymer multichannel continuum robot. First, the magnetic deformation of the continuum robot was theoretically analyzed, and the robot’s locomotion within a flow field was experimentally verified. Moreover, different channels of the multichannel continuum robot were independently designed for specific functions, enabling multithreaded operations. It can perform real-time sensing and monitoring of external environmental temperatures with high resolution and carry out targeted drug delivery as well as neural electrical stimulation. We successfully conducted in vitro experiments on isolated frog sciatic nerves, confirming the effectiveness of the multichannel continuum robot for biological treatment. The multichannel continuum robot shows great potential in the diagnosis and treatment of vasculitis in situ and nerve system disorder.