Safety systems in magnetically driven wireless capsule endoscopy

Magnetically driven wireless capsule endoscopy (WCE) represents one of the last achievements in the research of minimally invasive tools for gastrointestinal tract (GI) diagnosis. Recently, capsule localization methodologies have been employed to enable system autonomy maintaining a magnetic link with the device and managing interaction forces with GI tissues. To achieve these objectives, the locomotion platforms exploit automatic motion in some degrees of freedom and unsupervised contact with the external patient abdomen can occur. In this paper safety issues are faced; in particular a safety system, able to monitor pressure with patient abdomen, has been designed, characterized, and integrated with a magnetically driven WCE locomotion platform. New technologies, such as smart textiles, have been employed as sensible element. The proposed system showed promising results in controlling the pressure exerted on the abdomen respecting safety limits and increasing the efficiency and range of locomotion.