Microrobotic Locomotion in Blood Vessels: A Computational Study on the Performance of Surface Microrollers in the Cardiovascular System

Abstract

Surface microrollers have emerged as a promising microrobotic platform for navigation in the circulatory system as future drug/gene delivery applications. The circulatory system comprises various vessels with different dimensions, blood flow velocities, and flow regimes. Therefore, the performance of surface microrollers would vary in blood vessels. Herein, the performance of surface microrollers, with diameters between 5 and 50 μm, inside vessels of the systemic circulation including veins, venules, capillaries, arterioles, and arteries is investigated with computational fluid dynamics simulations. The simulation environment consists of a simplified fluid with the viscosity and density of blood, without red blood cells, in a cylindrical pipe. The microrollers demonstrate successful upstream locomotion ability in veins and partially in arteries but fail to perform in smaller blood vessels due to significant confinement and flow effects. Overall, the results presented here establish a preliminary result for the future in vivo use of surface microrollers.

Magnetic Colloidal Currents Guided on Self‐Assembled Colloidal Tracks

“…[13] However, unlike microrollers, the proposed strategy is in principle not limited in small vessels by confinement effects [42] or by the surface microtopographies found in the inner walls of blood vessels. [43] In the next future, we plan to implement alternative micropatterning methods, [44] in addition to exploring the possibility of transport along trajectories outside the confining plane. In this sense, magnetic membranes, foams, or magnetic chains linked through different polymeric bridges could help to enhance three-dimensional transport and overcome the limitations imposed by gravity in different applications.…”

“…[ 13 ] However, unlike microrollers, the proposed strategy is in principle not limited in small vessels by confinement effects [ 42 ] or by the surface microtopographies found in the inner walls of blood vessels. [ 43 ]…”

Swarming magnetic surface microrollers enable directed locomotion in circular confinements

“…Our approach leveraged previously developed computational uid dynamics (CFD) simulations described in our earlier works. Bozuyuk et al, 2023a). In our simulations, the xed microrollers were rotated with f = 100 Hz, while the lubrication distances ( , i.e., the distance between the microroller and nearby wall was systematically increased.…”

“…Swarming of microrobots offers signi cant advantages in terms of locomotion and enhanced imaging contrast (Jin et al, 2023 . A single unit in the swarm is also hydrodynamically enhanced by the neighboring units; therefore, swarming could potentially be useful to overcome hydrodynamic barriers encountered by microrobots Bozuyuk et al, 2021;Bozuyuk, Ozturk, & Sitti, 2023a). Here, we investigated the effect of swarming microrollers in cylindrical con nements using computational uid dynamics (CFD) environment.…”

Magnetic Mesoporous Janus Microrollers for Combined Chemo‐ and Photothermal Ablation Therapy

“…[9] Magnetically actuated surface rolling microrobots, also known as magnetic surface microrollers, are a robust microrobotic platform that has shown great promise for navigation in physiologically relevant environments due to their strong propulsion capability. [10][11][12][13][14][15][16] While the locomotion capability of microrollers has been extensively studied for in vivo navigation in different biophysical environments, further research is needed to expand their medical functionality beyond locomotion for specific medical applications. To address this issue, integrating multimodal synergistic therapies appears to be a promising approach for microrollers.…”