Kirchhoff rod-based three-dimensional dynamical model and real-time simulation for medical-magnetic guidewires

Background and Objective: Magnetic guidewire, fabricated from hard-magnetic soft composites, has recently emerged as an appropriate candidate for magnetic actuation systems to perform intravascular surgical navigation, owing to its elastic, magnetically steerable properties and good interphase with biological tissues. A suitable and efficient mathematical model for the magnetic guidewire is essential in the system to execute remote manipulation and active control. Methods: This paper presents a real-time Kirchhoff rod-based dynamical modeling approach, the magneto-elastic rod model, to simulate magnetic guidewire, which provides accurate simulations for two- and three-dimensional dynamic deflections induced by external magnetic fields and obtains deformed guidewire shapes in quasi-static status. Results: The proposed model is capable of describing the intrinsic principles of elastic body actuation by torques generated from the hard-magnetic soft matrix. The effectiveness of the developed model is validated, and the real-time simulation application is conducted via the semi-implicit numerical integration method. Conclusions: It has been shown that the presented dynamical model captures large nonlinear deformations and transient responses of the magnetic guidewire in an imitated human blood environment, which could offer robust support for the construction of a simulated magnetically driven surgical system.