Motivation
Medical capsule robots are cm-size mechatronic devices designed to perform medical tasks by entering the human body from natural orifices. Wireless capsule embedding a miniature camera are available since 2000 for diagnosis of small intestine diseases. Due to the complexity of operating inside the human body, capsule robots to date have been designed in an ad hoc fashion, relying on profound expertise acquired through many years of experience
Our Research
We are trying to systematize miniaturized wireless medical device design by creating a cyber-physical design environment that will lower the barriers to design space exploration, thus accelerating progress to prototyping.
A systematic approach to design of pill-size medical devices is possible by outlining the crosscutting constraint that these systems must address. The main ones are (1) size – ideally, a capsule device should be small enough to swallow or to enter natural orifices without requiring a dedicated incision; (2) power consumption — given the limited space available onboard, energy is limited; (3) communication bandwidth – wireless signals must be transmitted through the human body with a sufficient data rate; (4) fail safe operation — since the device is deep inside the human body, the user has no access to it; and (5) effective interaction with the target site, according to the specific functions the device is required to fulfill. Given these common constraints, it is possible to identify a general system architecture for a pill-size medical consisting of the following general modules: (1) a central processing unit (CPU), that can be programmed by the user to accomplish a specific task; (2) a communication submodule, that links the device with user intent; (3) a source of energy that powers the system; and (4) sensors and (5) actuators, both of which interact with the surrounding environment to accomplish one or more specific tasks. It is also desirable for the designers to have a model of the environment, in order to predict the effectiveness of the specific design in accomplishing the desired task.
Starting from this systematic approach, we are creating a web-based cyber-physical design framework that will offer different options for the basic submodules of the capsule robot that can be integrated to obtain a simulation of the expected performance. The main goal of the design environment is to lower the barriers to design space exploration, accelerating progress to prototyping, and increasing the probability of success for each prototype.