Contrast-Free Autonomous Navigation of Untethered Endovascular Microrobots Using Single-Plane Fluoroscopy

📅 2026-08-31
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Influential: 0
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🤖 AI Summary
本文提出VISTA框架,通过单平面荧光透视实现无对比剂的血管内微型机器人自主导航,解决了三维导航信息缺失问题。
📝 Abstract
Reliable three-dimensional (3D) navigation of magnetically actuated untethered microrobots remains a major barrier to clinical translation. X-ray fluoroscopy is the standard real-time imaging modality for endovascular procedures, but single-plane fluoroscopy provides only a two-dimensional (2D) projection, eliminating depth information and complicating autonomous navigation. Recovering this information through biplane imaging or repeated contrast-enhanced angiography increases procedural complexity, radiation exposure, or contrast burden. Here, we introduce VISTA (Virtual Integration for Spatial Tracking and Autonomy), a digital twin framework enabling contrast-free autonomous navigation under single-plane fluoroscopy. VISTA reconstructs vascular anatomy as a 3D digital twin, discretizes the vessel centerline into navigation milestones, and assigns the detected 2D robot position to the nearest projected milestone. Consecutive milestones define the local vessel orientation used to generate magnetic actuation commands, converting single-plane fluoroscopic observations into topology-constrained navigation states without requiring contrast injection during navigation. VISTA is demonstrated across anatomically distinct vascular phantoms under continuous flow and within the inferior vena cava of a live rat in vivo. Compared with conventional fluoroscopic human-in-the-loop control, VISTA reduced navigation time by up to 62%, corrective actuation commands by up to 98%, and radiation exposure by up to 57%. These results establish VISTA as a digital twin-guided framework for contrast-free autonomous navigation of untethered endovascular microrobots using widely available single-plane fluoroscopy.
Problem

Research questions and friction points this paper is trying to address.

3D navigation
magnetically actuated microrobots
single-plane fluoroscopy
depth information
contrast-free
Innovation

Methods, ideas, or system contributions that make the work stand out.

Digital Twin
Contrast-Free Navigation
Single-Plane Fluoroscopy
Autonomous Microrobots
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