Controlling tiny multi-scale robots for nerve repair

Abstract

We designed and evaluated multiagent control for micro-scopic robots (“nanorobots”) aiding the surgical repair of damaged nerve cells. This repair operates on both nerves as a whole, at scales of hundreds of microns, and individual nerve cell axons, at scales of about a micron. We match the robots to these sizes using a combination of microelectomechanical (MEMS) machines for the larger operations and nanorobots for operations on individual cells. Multiagent control allows accurate and rapid repair with such robots, with only mod-est computational and communication requirements for the nanorobots, a significant benefit due to their physical limita-tions. Our simulations, using physical parameters dictated by nerve biology and plausible nanorobotic capabilities, show how specific control choices lead to trade-offs in clinical out-come. Beyond the specific example of nerve repair treated here, multi-scale robots could aid a variety of medical and biological tasks involving both the large scale of organs or tissues and the microscopic scale of individual cells.