Miniaturization of biomedical micromachines

The growth of minimally invasive surgery and therapy (MIT and MIS) has generated strong need for smaller and smaller medical tools with enhanced diagnostic capabilities and high dexterity. The design of micromachines for MIS and MIT requires the application of criteria of biomedical micro engineering. It is not possible to simply scale down a macro-machine because we have to consider that the scaling laws of different forces have a different rate, thus changing their relative magnitude in the microdomain. As a consequence, common physical intuition has to be substituted or supported by theoretical modelling and numerical simulations. Biomedical micromachines have to strictly interact with the human body and the understanding of the biomechanical properties of tissues is of paramount importance for the appropriate design of a micromachine. In this paper, we outline some design concepts and present some physical cases of biomedical micromachines.