MagRobot:An Open Simulator for Magnetically Navigated Robots

2026-03-06

AI Summary

This work addresses the limitations in magnetic navigation robot development—namely, the high cost of experimental prototypes and the absence of a unified platform for cross-system comparison—by introducing the first open-source, extensible simulation framework tailored for magnetically actuated medical robots. The platform integrates physics-based models of magnetic actuation and tracking, modular interfaces for hardware and algorithms, support for deformable anatomical structures, and a graphical user interface that enables import of third-party anatomical models. Validated against phantom and ex vivo experiments for accuracy, the framework has been successfully applied across three clinical scenarios: bronchoscopy, endovascular intervention, and gastrointestinal endoscopy, demonstrating its effectiveness in supporting system design, algorithm optimization, and cross-platform consistency studies.

Technology Category

• Intelligent Robots: Multi-Robot Systems
• Computer Vision: Medical and Biological Imaging
• Multiagent Systems: Applications

Application Category

• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Web applications in cross-disciplinary domains and verticals such as mixed reality, smart cities, and digital health
• Web Mining and Content Analysis: Web data generation and simulation
• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy

Abstract

Magnetic navigation systems, including magnetic tracking systems and magnetic actuation systems, have shown great potential for occlusion-free localization and remote control of intracorporeal medical devices and robots in minimally invasive medicine, such as capsule endoscopy and cardiovascular intervention. However, the design of magnetically navigated robots remains heavily reliant on experimental prototyping, which is time-consuming and costly. Furthermore, there is a lack of a consistent experimental environment to compare and benchmark the hardware and algorithms across different magnetic navigation systems. To address these challenges, we propose the first universal open-source simulation platform to facilitate research, design and benchmarking of magnetically navigated robots. Our simulator features an intuitive graphical user interface that enables the user to efficiently design, visualize, and analyze magnetic navigation systems for both rigid and soft robots. The proposed simulator is versatile, which can simulate both magnetic actuation and magnetic tracking tasks in diverse medical applications that involve deformable anatomies. The proposed simulator provides an open development environment, where the user can load third-party anatomical models and customize both hardware and algorithms of magnetic navigation systems. The fidelity of the simulator is validated using both phantom and ex vivo experiments of magnetic navigation of a continuum robot and a capsule robot with diverse magnetic actuation setups. Three use cases of the simulator, i.e., bronchoscopy, endovascular intervention, and gastrointestinal endoscopy, are implemented to demonstrate the functionality of the simulator. It is shown that the configuration and algorithms of magnetic navigation systems can be flexibly designed and optimized for better performance using the simulator.

Problem

• magnetic navigation
• robot design
• simulation platform
• benchmarking
• medical robotics

Innovation

• magnetic navigation
• open-source simulator
• soft robotics
• medical robotics
• magnetic actuation