Finite-Difference Modeling of Micromachine for Use in Gastrointestinal Endoscopy

An on-going research project is to develop a micromachine driven actively and wirelessly by external magnetic field. The micromachine has great potential for being used in medical fields such as gastrointestinal endoscopy. The ultimate goal is to develop a control mechanism capable of moving the wireless endoscope through the human´s gastrointestinal tract in any direction with minimum level of harm to human body. This paper establishes fluid dynamics model suitable for micromachine´s movement in intestinal tract, simulates pressure distributions of micromachine´s surface, and further calculates driving and load torques. Based on the fluid simulation results, parameters for generating appropriate rotating magnetic field can be calculated. This fluid dynamics simulation method provides a novel approach to analyze biomedical micromachine´s mechanical properties under external electromagnetic equipment.