Magnetic Ball Chain Robots for Cardiac Arrhythmia Treatment

TL;DR

This paper presents a magnetic navigation system using a chain of spherical magnets for cardiac ablation, enabling precise control and effective tissue lesioning with a compact design suitable for clinical integration.

Contribution

The study introduces a novel magnetic catheter design and actuation system, demonstrating effective navigation and ablation capabilities in cardiac tissue with experimental validation.

Findings

Small rotating magnets can reach cardiac targets and generate clinically relevant forces.

Robotic control provides smoother navigation compared to manual control.

The magnetic chain catheter can produce lesions comparable to current clinical catheters.

Abstract

This paper introduces a novel magnetic navigation system for cardiac ablation. The system is formed from two key elements: a magnetic ablation catheter consisting of a chain of spherical permanent magnets; and an actuation system comprised of two cart-mounted permanent magnets undergoing pure rotation. The catheter design enables a large magnetic content with the goal of minimizing the footprint of the actuation system for easier integration with the clinical workflow. We present a quasi-static model of the catheter, the design of the actuation units, and their control modalities. Experimental validation shows that we can use small rotating magnets (119mm diameter) to reach cardiac ablation targets while generating clinically-relevant forces. Catheter control using a joystick is compared with manual catheter control. blue While total task completion time is similar, smoother navigation is observed using the proposed robotic system. We also demonstrate that the ball chain can ablate heart tissue and generate lesions comparable to the current clinical ablation catheters.