Tiny camera chip takes 3D pictures of your insides

Ever wanted to see what was going on inside of your body? Researchers from Georgia Tech have been thinking the same thing.

Now there’s a technology that could provide real-time, three-dimensional imaging from inside your heart, coronary arteries, and peripheral blood vessels.

How it works

F. Levent Degertekin, a professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, created the device, which integrates ultrasound transducers with processing electronics on a single 1.4-millimeter silicon chip.

The donut-shaped chip has a thin film on top of it that flutters 0.00005 of a millimeter and creates sound waves which are captured by 100 sensors on the chip, then processed and transmitted to an external video monitor at a rate of 60 frames per second using 13 gossamer cables that are threated through a catheter.

Degertekin and the Georgia Tech team have developed and tested a prototype that was able to provide data at 60 frames per second.

The device is energy efficient, too. Power-saving circuitry shuts down the sensors when they aren’t needed so the device can operate with just 20 milliwatts of power.

Benefits

The camera chip on a finger.

With imaging technology like this, surgeons could more efficiently work on the heart and potentially allow clogged arteries to be cleared without major surgery.

“If you’re a doctor, you want to see what is going on inside the arteries and inside the heart, but most of the devices being used for this today provide only cross-sectional images,” Degertekin explained. “If you have an artery that is totally blocked, for example, you need a system that tells you what’s in front of you. You need to see the front, back, and sidewalls altogether. That kind of information is basically not available at this time.”

The next steps aim to conduct animal studies that could put the device on the market. The team ultimately expects to license the technology to an established medical diagnostic firm to conduct the clinical trials necessary to obtain FDA approval.

To learn more about the research, visit Georgia Tech’s website.