Fig 1.
Recommended tattooing position.
The right figure shows the injection in the submucosal layer with an oblique angle to the organ’s wall, and the left figure shows the injection location relative to the lesion margin.
Fig 2.
(A) Conceptual design of the WCE equipped with the tattoo module. (B) Two states of the NCM for needle extrusion.
Fig 3.
Tattooing procedure of the TCE controlled by the external magnetic field.
Fig 4.
(A) Tattooing module with components at the initial state. (B) Tattooing module after triggering the chemical reaction. (C) The chemical-reaction triggering module using reed switch.
Fig 5.
(A) NCM components. (B) Rotating magnetic field rotates the permanent magnet. (C) Rotating motion of the RPM is converted into translation motion to switch the status of the NCM.
Fig 6.
EMA system for capsule manipulation.
(A) Configuration and control scheme of the EMA system. (B) Actuation mechanism of the TCE; the arrow indicates the generated magnetic field vector H and force vector F.
Table 1.
Technical specifications of the EMA system.
Fig 7.
Real experiment setup for the in-vitro and ex-vivo tests.
Fig 8.
(A) Components of the TCE. (B) Assembled NCM. (C) Assembled triggering module. (D) Assembled TCE prototype.
Fig 9.
Experiment to evaluate the submucosal injection force.
The left figure is the schematic diagram of the experiment setup and the right figure shows the actual photoshoot.
Fig 10.
Experimental result of the submucosal injection force with needles of various sizes.
Fig 11.
Experimental results of the chemical reaction force for various amounts of reactants.
Fig 12.
Measurements of magnetic force exerted on the TCE.
(A) Experimental setup. (B) Electromagnetic force exerting on the TCE by the EMA system at various levels of the gradient field.
Fig 13.
Reed switch controlled by EMA verification.
(A) Starting position of the capsule with LED OFF. (B) Overlapped picture of the capsule’s movement while maintaining the LED state. (C) Capsule reaches the target and the reed switch is activated, thereby turning LED ON.
Fig 14.
Ex-vivo experimental results conducted in pig’s small intestine with four steps of the TCE procedure.
The arrow shows the direction of the vector; the straight arrow represents the non-rotating magnetic field and the rotation arrow represents the rotating magnetic field.
Fig 15.
(A) Inner and outer surfaces of the tattooed intestine. (B) Cross-section inspection of the dyed tissue.