title: Towards a micropositioning system for targeted drug delivery in wireless capsule endoscopy.
abstract: This paper describes a novel micropositioning mechanism for achieving 1 ml of targeted drug delivery within wireless capsule endoscopes. The mechanism allows a needle to be positioned within a 22.5° segment of a cylindrical capsule and be extendible by up to 4mm. The mechanism achieves both these functions using only a single micromotor and occupying a volume of just 200 mm(3) (including micromotor), this represents only 6.6% of the total available space. Through a detailed stress analysis it has been shown that the proposed mechanism can be fabricated using FDA approved materials and requires a power budget of under 3.3% of the available capacity. It is envisaged this mechanism would empower a new breed of capsule microrobots for therapy in addition to diagnostics for pathologies such as ulcerative colitis and small intestinal Crohn's disease.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Bio-Inspired Technology, Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering and Institute of Biomedical Engineering, Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, London SW7 2AZ, United Kingdom. s.woods09@imperial.ac.uk
authors.forename: Stephen P
authors.initials: SP
authors.lastname: Woods
authors.forename: Timothy G
authors.initials: TG
authors.lastname: Constandinou
mesh_terms: D053704:Capsule Endoscopy / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D003198:Computer Simulation; D016503:Drug Delivery Systems / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D004867:Equipment Design; D006801:Humans; D009339:Needles; D012371:Robotics / Q000379:methods*