Magnetic millirobots ‘can be used in less invasive surgical procedures’

Engineers at the University of Houston have developed a means of using magnetic millirobots as a means of administering surgery in a less invasive way.

The team has developed a technique for sending tiny manoeuverable robotic components to a desired location, before triggering the conversion of magnetic potential energy into enough kinetic energy to penetrate tissue.

Using an MRI scanner, the researchers mapped routes on high-quality brain images, utilising the device's magnetic fields to push the small robots. Each 3D-printed component contains slender titanium rod spacers separating two steel balls.

This approach would theoretically require only a hypodermic needle or lumbar puncture to introduce the components into the spinal canal, with the components being magnetically steered out of the body afterwards.

Aaron Becker, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Houston, said: "The work is still conceptual, but we have demonstrated the procedure working on plastic, fluid-filled containers, or phantoms, inside an unmodified clinical MRI scanner."