Offline Programming Guidance for Swarm Steering of Micro-/Nano Magnetic Particles in a Dynamic Multichannel Vascular Model

Abstract

Magnetically targeted drug delivery (MTD) systems are used in the treatment of various diseases. However, few studies on the targeting of micro-/nano-sized magnetic particles (MPs) inside multi-bifurcations vessel with fluid flow have appeared. Here, we present a user-interface offline programming guidance (OLPG) scheme that controls MPs within a multi-channel dynamic vascular model. The OLPG scheme can simplify the guidance complexity for MTD and overcome the difficulties in real-time sensing of magnetic nanoparticles (MPs). Calibration between real and virtual environments minimizes OLPG errors due to the aggregation properties of the MPs. A Swarm of Aggregated MPs (SAMPs) can be defined experimentally as the equivalent diameter of a single MP. The joystick position is linearly related to the MP magnetic forces of a real electromagnetic actuator. SAMPs were controlled inside the MTD simulator using the joystick and their control commands can be downloaded to the real controller of the in vitro multi-channel vessel model. We performed both simulations and in vitro studies in the multi-channel vascular model. A user guided MPs to the desired locations in similar to 50% of simulations and similar to 49.5% of in vitro studies, in the absence of visual feedback. Also, a realistic 3D blood vessel model was simulated to evaluate the feasibility of the OLPG scheme. Our system has a potential to guide in vivo drug delivery.