ARPA-H Funding Will Support Teams to Advance Robotics Stroke Interventions

August 12, 2026—The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), an agency within the United States Department of Health and Human Services, announced contract awards to seven teams through its Autonomous Interventions and Robotics (AIR) program to develop autonomous robotic systems and microbots for the treatment of stroke.

The program is divided into two technical areas.

• Technical area 1 (TA1) focuses on autonomous robotic systems designed to perform parts of or entire surgical interventions independently, with the goal of expanding access to curative stroke care regardless of patient location.
• Technical area 2 (TA2) focuses on microbots intended to enable less invasive interventions without specialized equipment, according to the agency’s press release.

TA1 awardees include Siemens Healthineers; Philips North America, LLC; Magnendo; University of California, San Diego (UCSD); and Kitware, Inc.

As summarized by ARPA-H, the teams will pursue the following:

• Siemens will develop an autonomous endovascular surgical system combining adapted commercial components, fluoroscopic imaging, and physics- and reinforcement learning–based navigation algorithms.
• Philips will integrate image-guided therapy infrastructure with a multichannel, fluid-driven steerable catheter and imitation learning algorithms.
• Magnendo will develop an autonomous endovascular robot that uses a robotically maneuvered magnet to steer a guidewire through the vasculature, with its position determined by combining preoperative imaging and real-time scans.
• The UCSD team will develop a flexible, soft “growing robot” designed to extend through the vasculature to reach the brain and perform mechanical thrombectomy.
• Kitware will develop a virtual simulation and validation testbed for the four TA1 robotic systems. Data and software from the testbed will be made publicly available, stated ARPA-H.

TA2 awardees are Stanford University and University of California, Berkeley. Stanford will develop and clinically translate M3bot, an untethered magnetic helical intravascular device designed to autonomously debulk and extract blood clots for ischemic stroke. The Berkeley team will develop a five-segment crawling robot intended to navigate within the body for tissue sampling and through fluid-filled spaces in the brain to reduce pressure buildup.

ARPA-H stated that its commitment to AIR is up to $175.3 million over 5 years, with individual award amounts contingent on teams meeting research milestones.

At 24 months, teams are expected to demonstrate autonomous capabilities in benchtop or biological models. At 60 months, they are expected to demonstrate fully autonomous surgical interventions in realistic models, animals, or human cadavers, noted ARPA-H.

Additional information is available on the AIR webpage.