Research on Coaxial Control of Magnetic Spiral-Type Capsule Endoscope

In this paper, a novel method of controlling the wireless capsule endoscope (WCE) is proposed. The WCE is coated with a magnetic shell wounded by a spiral structure. The external permanent magnet (EPM) provides coaxial control to the magnetic spiral-type WCE. According to this control method, the maximum and minimum control distances between the EPM and WCE are theoretically analyzed and simulated by electromagnetic software, and the corresponding measured values are 276.3 mm, 87.1 mm, respectively. In experiments, the WCE's stable translational velocity can reach 32.9 mm/s. It indicates that this method is of good control performances and has great potential to be used in the future real clinical applications.