Navigation of a robotic capsule endoscope with a novel ultrasound tracking system

Capsule endoscopes used for diagnosis in the gastro intestinal tract have gained much popularity in recent years due to the minimized patient discomfort and available operating range. New therapeutic applications of these devices are surgical interventions or medication at specific locations. So far capsule endoscopic devices are passively propelled prohibiting these new approaches. To overcome this issue we presented a Magnet Drive Unit (MDU) for external actuation for robotic capsule devices in our previous work. While MDU is used for manipulation of a capsule-robot, there has not been any information of the current location of the robot within the patient. Therefore, we propose a novel ultrasound based tracking system for the capsule-robot and endoscopic devices in this manuscript. The tracking system consists of a Cartesian robot actuating a transcutaneous sonographic probe in two degrees of freedom. While the capsule-robot is propelled by MDU, our tracking system generates sonographic images through the back of the patient showing the current location of the capsule. The results of our experiments unveil that our concept is feasible and can be used to navigate a robotic capsule device inside the human body.