MicroNITREIT : Microscale Non-Invasive Tracking of Robots using Electrical Impedance Tomography

Bioengineering is an ever-evolving branch, and more and more challenges present themselves year by year. One of these challenges will be to bring tiny micro-robots inside the human body, through minimally invasive surgery. Minimally invasive surgery can cause less pain, scarring and damage to healthy tissue and the patient can have a faster recovery than traditional surgery. To date it is difficult to deploy Microrobot inside the body. One of the most interesting challenges is represented by robots about half-a-millimetre long. Capable of moving through ultrasonic waves, microrobots are easy to handle but not to track within a complex environment such as the human body can be. The aim of this research is to gather data to find a way to track microrobots inside the body thanks to EIT (electrical impedance tomography), a non-invasive technique that relies on the impedance difference of materials. The realisation of this feat will eventually lead to breakthroughs in the field of medicine, such as the targeted drug delivery in situ at the tumour site.