MIT engineers have designed a soft robot that can work its way through the small intestine, an organ more than 20 feet long and about an inch wide that doctors find hard to reach.
The robotic enteroscope can take images, deliver drugs and remove small polyps or tissue samples for biopsy, according to MIT News. The study appeared Oct. 28 in Science Robotics.
How it moves
The design borrows from snakes. Actuators with four air chambers inflate in different combinations so the tube can extend or bend in any direction. Balloons at the head and tail take turns inflating to pull the robot forward.
Those segments are wrapped in kirigami-patterned sleeves. When a balloon expands, tiny needles pop out, working like snake scales to grip the slippery intestinal lining.
“By tuning the amount of air that goes into these chambers, you can tune the direction that the robot is moving in,” said Giovanni Traverso, professor of mechanical engineering at MIT, a gastroenterologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the study's senior author.
Why it matters
Today, doctors often rely on double balloon enteroscopy, which MIT describes as slow and laborious. “If we find a little polyp that needs to be removed, this robot allows us to take a biopsy or remove it,” Traverso said.
The robot is tethered to external controllers and could enter through the mouth or rectum. In animal studies it traveled about six and a half feet. The team is now improving navigation and testing other uses.