The MR-bots

Our Engagement with MRI & Magnetic Steering

Combining complementary expertise, three investigators in the Houston area Becka, Tsekos and Shah, embarked on a journey to develop a cyber-physical system (CPS) for deliving localized therapeutic interventions using MRI Powered & Guided Tetherless Effectors. For Tsekos and Shah, this research was motivated and inspired by their earlier works in the development of yet another CPS focused on for MR-guided intracardiac interventions.

This theme, resulted to an NSF award entitled “CPS: Synergy: Collaborative Research: MRI Powered & Guided Tetherless Effectors for Localized Therapeutic Interventions”

NSF Award Page

This award was focused on developing core technologies and integrating into a CPS that uses a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner to wirelessly power, control and guide tetherless ferrous milli-robots for accurate therapeutic interventions. This CPS integrates physical (scanner sensor/actuator, effectors, patient, operator) and cyber (world modeling, combined sensor and effector control, operator immersion). The three Investigators and their teams brought together complementary expertise:

• Becker (ECE @UH): effector designs, swarm single-source control, magnetism

• Tsekos (CS @UH): cyber-framework, MRI and robot-to-MRI control, human-in/on-the-loop and interfacing

• Shah (CardioMR @Methodist-Houston): Clinical perspective and MR studies

Recognizing the niche anc challenging character of this theme, we proposed and followed a rather holistic, end-to-end, approach designing from the ground-up a novel CPS that links sensing, effector & sensor control and visual/force-feedback for comprehensive perception of the physical environment. This entailed works in

• Sensor-based real-time modeling of physical world,

• Sensor control

• Effector control

• Human-machine interfacing via hologram for immersion into information & control

• Interventional Medicine.

In the fields of cyber-framework, robot-to-MRI control and human-in/on-the-loop and interfacing this project has resulted top a plethora of outcomes that are listed in the corresponding sections below

MR Ferrous Bots

The different aspects of this work were supported in part by the National Science Foundation Grants CNS-0932272, and CNS-1646566. All opinions and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this web page k reflect the views of authors not our sponsors.

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