Intravascular-bot

Soft-Body IntraVascular Robot

A soft-bodied robotic device engineered for precise navigation and treatment within blood vessels. By utilizing earthworm-like movement, this robot is designed to access difficult-to-reach areas, performing tasks like blood clot removal, targeted medication delivery, and real-time vessel monitoring with minimal invasiveness.

Meet The Team

Our Mission

The motivation behind our project is to create a medical device to enhance a surgeon’s capabilities and develop a new method for conducting a currently taxing and time-consuming surgery. The device in question is a small surgical robot designed to traverse an artery from the hip up to the head and clear life-threatening blood clots resulting from a stroke or similar medical emergency. 

The scope of our team’s contribution is to be limited to fit with the required time constraints; our goal is to benefit future teams by refining the locomotion of the surgical device through the production of a roughly 10x scale prototype. This prototype should produce a strong skeleton such that future innovations can be implemented without compromising the base function of the robot: to quickly and reliably move within a human artery facsimile.

  • The team wrapped up phase 3 presentations this week, where the most imporant feedback recieved was regarding the force of the piezoelectric being significant enough to be a feasible acutation method. The teams number one priority going into phase 4…

  • The parts the team ordered were delivered, and some preliminary testing was done to ensure the design is supported before moving forward. The hexagonal end pieces were sucessfully 3D printed using PLA, the structure which the piezoelectric material will adhere…

  • Determined exactly what piezoelectric material is good for prototyping. A cheap but functional material will be using for proof of concept. It is not safe for the human body, as it contains lead. However, there are versions of the same…

  • The largest roadblock the team has had so far was determining the actuation method that goes into the soft-body shell of the robot. After looking at several actuation methods, like magnetic or memory-alloy, the team settled on Piezoelectric material. With…