MRI Powered Mini Robots

Invasive surgical techniques allow physicians to effectively treat disease but can lead to sometimes serious complications and dramatically slow healing for the patient. Scientists instead want to deploy dozens, or even thousands of tiny robots to travel the body's venous system as they deliver drugs or a self-assembled interventional tool.

This is a picture of Aaron Becker working with 3-D printing to be able to produce the miniature sized robots to develop drugs and other medical interventions. In basic surgical techniques tumors can be formed very often and also slow healing of the patients. To eliminate this and have doctors help patients effectively they are creating mini robots the will enter the venous system to help induce drugs and self heal. 

The University of Houston and Houston Methodist Hospital are developing control algorithms, imaging technology, ultrafast computational methods and human-machine immersion methods to harness the force from a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner to both image and steer millimeter-sized robots through the body. "We want to move from science fiction to science feasibility," said Aaron Becker, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at UH and principal investigator for a $608,000 Synergy Award from the National Science Foundation to develop prototypes for testing. People that think outside of the box and want to turn fiction into reality like Aaron Becker 

A key issue is real-time control, Becker said, noting that blood vessels move around in the body, making it crucial to be able to see both the anatomy and the robot as it moves in order to keep it moving correctly. Ultimately, Becker said, the goal is to use the power of an MRI to steer large numbers of robots throughout the body. 

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