Deadly bowel cancer is on the rise and the best chance to defeat them this is with early diagnosis. However, modern methods for examining the digestive tract are very invasive.scaring off many patients. Some pResearchers hope soft, magnetically controlled robots the size of a vitamin capsule could replace them. diagnostic methods for several years.
Team led Qingsong XuProfessor of Electromechanical Engineering at the University of Macau Chinarecently presented a prototype of a microrobot inspired movement about an African spider that instead of crawling, circles the desert dunes of Namibia.
The robot, made of a rubber-like magnetic material, was tested on the stomach, colon and small intestine of animals. Researchers said it successfully negotiated the “challenging environment” of the digestive tract, full of mucus, sharp turns and obstacles up to 8 centimeters high.
Modern procedures use endoscopes, flexible tubes with a camera that doctors insert into a patient's digestive tract through the mouth or rectum. The procedure requires sedation due to the extreme discomfort it causes the patient, and improper manipulation of the endoscope can result in serious injury, including bowel perforation. Some patients may delay investigation out of fear, which can have disastrous consequences because Cancer may spread. Other diseases such as stomach ulcers and Crohn's disease also diagnosed using endoscopy.
“Traditional endoscopes cause a lot of discomfort and do not allow easy access to complex, deeper areas inside the body,” Xu said. IEEE spectrum. “The goal of the soft magnetic robot is to provide a minimally invasive, controllable and highly flexible alternative.”
How the robot moves
Soft magnetic robotssuch as the one developed by Xu offer a more acceptable alternative to endoscopy. The robot, about the size of a large vitamin capsule, could be swallowed with relative ease and pass through the stomach and the entire length of the small and large intestines, powered by an external magnetic field. The robotic mini-spider could perform detailed inspections of complex terrain without disturbing the patient too much. At the end of its journey, it leaves the body in the same way as processed food.
Other commands experimented with different types robot movementincluding crawling, jumping and swimming, explorers said in the newspaper description of a new robot published in a magazine International Journal of Extreme Manufacturing last month. However, these earlier designs had limitations when moving through complex environments such as the digestive tract.
This series of images shows the robot moving around the stomach. In the far right column, the researchers also demonstrate targeted drug delivery. Ruomeng Xu, Xianli Wang, et al.
“We chose a design inspired by the golden wheel spider because it provided superior ability to overcome obstacles and energy efficiency “Compared with other locomotion models,” Xu said, “By imitating this type of patient locomotion, the robot can navigate mucus, folded surfaces, and even vertically inclined surfaces with remarkable stability.”
The golden wheel spider is a small arachnid, about 2 centimeters wide, that escapes danger by wrapping its legs around its body and sliding down sloping desert dunes. The robot developed by the Macau team uses the same strategy, but instead of being powered gravityit rolls down the digestive tract thanks to an external magnetic force that interacts with tiny magnets in the robot's legs. To accurately control the robot, the researchers created deft robotic arm equipped with a powerful rotating magnet, which is located next to the patient during the procedure.
The researchers plan to conduct further experiments with live animals. animals and, if all goes well, we will move on to clinical trials in humans. Xu hopes soft spider robots could help doctors examine the insides of patients in just five years.
“The medical community is increasingly recognizing the potential of soft magnetic robots to revolutionize endoscopic procedures by minimizing patient discomfort and improving precision,” Xu said. “There is a lot of interest in the medical world.”
In the not-too-distant future, advances in microrobotics may allow targeted drug delivery in the treatment of ulcers or tumors. Tiny robots can also be used to perform a range of minimally invasive interventions and examinations. This field has been developing rapidly in the last few years, although no such robot has yet found application in clinical practice, and magnetically controlled robots are a promising area of development that many researchers are exploring.
For example, a team from North Carolina State University recently introduced another such robot, also using flexible magnetic material. Instead of spinning a cart, the North Carolina robot crawls through its digestive tract like a caterpillar; external magnetic forces cause contractions of its 3D printed origami-style structure. Article published in the magazine Advanced functional materials described experiments with a robot that simulated the treatment of a false gastric ulcer.
Xiaomeng FanAssociate Professor of Materials Engineering at North Carolina State University and lead author of the paper, said IEEE spectrum the work aroused great interest. “These robots are soft and can be controlled remotely,” she said. “They can also change their shape, which makes them very interesting for treating internal diseases.”
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