Robot combined with swallowable camera could give docs a better look inside the small intestine (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
The words "intestinal bug" could gain a whole new meaning if a Carnegie Mellon University engineer is successful in his efforts to develop a medical robot for examining the intestinal tract.
Metin Sitti, director of the NanoRobotics Lab, is developing a set of legs that could be incorporated into the swallowable camera-in-a-pill that has become available in the past four years for diagnosing gastrointestinal disorders in the small intestine.
The capsule camera snaps thousands of pictures as it makes its way slowly through the narrow tract, carried by the wave-like peristaltic motion that moves all contents through the intestines.
But Sitti is hoping that adding legs to the capsule will give physicians a measure of control. The work is supported by the Intelligent Microsystems Center in Seoul, Korea, and sponsored by the Korean Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy. More here
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