Description

This work develops a simulation and control framework for steering a guidewire through the gastrointestinal tract using magnetic actuation. The goal: make certain medical procedures less invasive by guiding instruments magnetically rather than manually.

The guidewire is modeled as a chain of mass-spring-damper elements that can bend and stretch. This captures the essential physics—how the wire deforms under magnetic forces and contact with tissue walls—without the computational cost of full finite element analysis.

Control uses a single external magnet. By changing its position and orientation, the magnetic field gradient steers the guidewire tip. The simulations show that one magnet provides enough degrees of freedom to navigate 3D paths, as long as the guidewire stays reasonably close to the intended trajectory.

The tricky part is tuning the magnetic forces. Too strong and the motion becomes jerky; too weak and the guidewire won’t follow. The interaction between the guidewire and surrounding tissue also affects control precision.

Future work could use multiple magnets or optimize their placement for better controllability. The current single-magnet setup is a baseline that proves the concept works.