Design of Bed-typed Electromagnetic Actuator System for Magnetic Catheter Navigation in Coronary Artery

Untethered navigation of magnetic catheter is a technique that utilizes an external magnetic field to guide movement of catheter tip through a complex environment. Significant progress has been made in the development of catheter steering in clinical setup. However, it is still confined to the majority of treatment procedures due to its cost-effectiveness. In this paper, a compact bed-typed electromagnetic actuator (EMA) system is developed to steer the tip of the catheter by controlling the external magnetic field in the region of interest (ROI) surrounding the human heart. Coil configuration and coil structure were designed and optimized to generate the maximum magnetic field, regarding the size of the human body. The independent magnetic field control method is used for magnetic field generation to orient the catheter tip in the desired direction. The EMA system performances were verified and simulated using finite element method.