Page 465 - Handbook of Biomechatronics

Bioinspired and Biomimetic Micro-Robotics for Therapeutic Applications 459

are trying to employ the micro-swimmers in a more direct way with an
increasing enthusiasm. This evolution of robotics research efforts that will
be humbly outlined here has a long past and an even longer journey ahead.
Therefore, the reader will be initiated to the two main conundra waiting to
be solved, that is, energy efficiency and biocompatibility, for the particular
field of bioinspired micro-robotic swimmers for medicine as focused on
the entirety of this chapter.
It is safe to say that the bulk of the effort spent to this date has been indeed
to address these two main problems and their implications for the design,
actuation, and control of such robotic systems. The success of these systems
will revolutionize the modern medicine in terms of elevated patience com-
placency and reduced drug use as the need of invasive procedures may be
greatly reduced in some cases and the total amount of consumption of potent
chemicals will significantly drop. Cancer treatment, the remedy to a specific
group of terminal diseases, is a very vivid example of bombarding the entire
body with drugs to kill only a certain group of cells. Due to special condi-
tions in the cancerous tissue, such as high pressure, a significant amount of
the administrated drug does not concentrate on the targeted area. In that
regard, the current efforts are orchestrated to achieve drug delivery in small
doses with high accuracy, thus sparing the patient of a rather overwhelming
treatment procedure (Felfoul and Martel, 2013).
The subject matter hereafter is mainly focused on swimming micro-
robots as some of the major constituents such as circulatory, lymphatic,
digestive, and central nervous systems contain ducts and channels filled with
liquids that can be used as conduits for a planned journey. In this text,
2
9
untethered, cm- (10 ) to nm-scale (10 ), and robotic experiments and
demonstrations have been considered as suitable examples of application.
However, it should be noted that there lies a massive bulk of scientific
and engineering effort behind. Although the focus will be on bioinspired
robots, the reader will find that the manufacturing techniques and the actu-
ation methods are far agiler, and therefore could be useful in a wider range of
robotic systems (Kummer et al., 2010). It is also important to note that nano-
robotics and nano-science are not included in great detail in this context;
however, the reader will find the flavor whenever it is deemed important
to mention.
All variables are assumed to be in standard international (SI) units as pres-
ented following the designated symbol of the respective parameter through-
out the chapter; however, coefficients and dimensionless number groups are
exceptions to this practice.