Drug delivery and distribution in the central nervous system (CNS) and the inner ear represent a challenge for the medical and scientific world, especially because of the blood–brain and the blood–perilymph barriers. Solutions are being studied to circumvent or to facilitate drug diffusion across these structures. Using superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs), which can be coated to change their properties and ensure biocompatibility, represents a promising tool as a drug carrier. They can act as nanocarriers and can be driven with precision by magnetic forces. The aim of this study was to systematically review the use of SPIONs in the CNS and the inner ear. A systematic PubMed search between 1999 and 2019 yielded 97 studies. In this review, we describe the applications of the SPIONS, their design, their administration, their pharmacokinetic, their toxicity and the methods used for targeted delivery of drugs into the ear and the CNS.

Our work introduces a new robotic solution named CochleRob, which is used for the administration of super-paramagnetic antiparticles as drug carriers into the human cochlea for the treatment of hearing loss caused by damaged cochlea. This novel robot architecture presents two key contributions. First, CochleRob has been designed to meet specifications pertaining to ear anatomy, including workspace, degrees of freedom, compactness, rigidity, and accuracy. The first objective was to develop a safer mathod to administer drugs to the cochlea without the need for catheter or CI insertion. Secondly, we aimed at developing and validating the mathemathical models, including forward, inverse, and dynamic models, to support the robot function. Our work provides a promising solution for drug administration into the inner ear.

Electromagnetic actuation represents a novel wireless control approach utilized for the manipulation of magnetic microrobots, particularly in the context of diverse minimally invasive therapeutic applications. This study presented contributions relating to the integration of a human operator into the control system of an electromagnetic actuation framework through haptic assistance. The intervention of a human operator serves multiple purposes, encompassing the safe piloting of the microrobot during the procedure and the utilization of the doctor’s expertise. Consequently, this human-in-the-loop approach not only ensures heightened safety but also enhances public acceptability, particularly in the realm of drug delivery within the human body. To facilitate these objectives, a haptic device was proposed to propel and orient the microrobots within blood vessels, thereby enabling their targeted delivery. Additionally, a novel magnetic guidance strategy was introduced, relying on the utilization of two magnetic forces to simplify and optimize the guidance process. The electromagnetic actuation system, developed in our research laboratory, offers a comprehensive workspace that has been obtained through analytical and quantitative modeling of the magnetic field generated by the system. With an accessible workspace encompassing a cubic volume of 70 mm in length, the system facilitates easy access from all four lateral sides. Such an architectural design allows for efficient manipulation of microparticles within a significantly larger 3D workspace, surpassing the limitations imposed by traditional systems primarily confined to a small central area, as observed in existing literature. Experimental evaluations encompassing both 2D and 3D scenarios were conducted to validate the efficacy of the magnetic navigation platform.

In this paper, an observer-based state feedback control strategy for trajectory tracking of a magnetic microrobot navigating within a 3D blood vessel is proposed. The desired trajectory to be followed by the microrobot is generated by an operator using a joystick device. To deal with the significant effect of both external disturbances and parametric uncertainties, often encountered in biological environments, a state feedback stabilization, that enforces the output tracking despite any environmental disturbances, is developed. Then, for the purpose of implementation, a state observer is developed to recover the whole state from the measured position of the microrobot. The state feedback and observer gains are determined separately by solving a set of linear matrix inequalities derived in the framework of Lyapunov stability theory. Simulation runs are performed to demonstrate the performance of the proposed control strategy.

This article proposes a model predictive control (MPC) for trajectory tracking of a microrobot in a 2D fluidic environment. The reference trajectory is generated using a joystick device and it is estimated using a Luenberger observer. Assuming that the position of the microrobot is measured, the objective is to design an observer-based MPC control capable to track the reference trajectory generated by a joystick device. To optimize the MPC control, we have introduced a quadratic criterion where these parameters are determined to have a specific behavior of the closed loop system. Finally, simulation results are presented here to show the efficiency of the proposed approach