ISRAEL: Israeli researchers develop smallest micro robot to crawl through the human body

Record ID: 395987

  • Title: ISRAEL: Israeli researchers develop smallest micro robot to crawl through the human body
  • Date: 19th July 2007
  • Summary: MONITOR SHOWING HAND HOLDING TUBE CONTAINING MICRO ROBOT
  • Embargoed: 3rd August 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Israel
  • Country: Israel
  • Topics: Health,Light / Amusing / Unusual / Quirky
  • Reuters ID: LVA6CAZV9JIJT4118OQNBAK35QS2
  • Story Text: Israeli researchers develop the smallest micro robot designed to crawl inside the human body's smallest tubes.
    Israeli researchers are developing a micro robot which is designed to travel through the tiniest channels in the human body so as to access areas that current technology can not reach.
    Researchers hope this could lead to breakthroughs in diagnostic and therapeutic procedures.
    The device being developed by a group of researchers at the Technion, Israel's Institute for Technology, is the smallest robot in the world that does not require any external or additional aid in order to crawl through the smallest of diameters.
    A group of scientists, headed by Professor Moshe Shoham of the Department for Technical Engineer, built the robot which is 1 millimeter in width and 4 millimeter in length and uses an external source of energy.
    Future robots can be much smaller, Shoham said.
    "The thing that make this special is the size that we are achieved in this project and the mechanism that can actually propel inside the body, so we think that even the size that right now we have, which I have said is about 1 millimeter, we can reduce it even further because the type of actuations enables us to make it even smaller than that," Shoham said.
    Current technology allows doctors to insert small objects which carry medicine, cameras and other devices into the body. These objects are usually inserted using plastic guiding tubes and are attached to various cables for energy or transmission of information, which limits their mobility and possible work duration.
    Shoham said the aim of the project, developed at the laboratory for medical robotics, is to help doctors access parts of the human body with more ease than current methods allow.
    "The general idea behind this project was to try to develop a small device that can go inside human body in order to reach several locations for therapeutic and for diagnostic (purposes)," he added.
    The micro robot will be able to crawl through the human vascular system, the spinal chord and other organs that are now considered 'out of reach' for doctors, Shoham said.
    Dr. Nir Shralb and Oded Salomon, who developed the tiny device along with Professor Shoham, said the micro robot's ability to crawl and that it carries no additional weight gives it a clear advantage over similar devices.
    "Ours is a crawling micro robot where we succeeded to create very small micro robot that the whole benefit of crawling is being able to withstand the flow of the blood," said Salomon.
    "The robot can move itself using outer actuation, that means that there is no on-board actuation, no batteries on board. This means that one can miniaturize the robot in sizes which actually have no limits," added Shralb.
    In addition to its size, the robot has a unique structure with multiple legs jetting off of its torso. The legs cling to the walls of the tube and propel the robot forward, even against the blood flow.
    The researchers did not discuss how the micro robot receives its energy from the external source, but said that as it did not carry wires or operate off batter power, the work duration for the robot has no time limits.
    Technion researchers are certain that in the near future they will complete their project, producing the micro robot that will allow easier, deeper, and more flexible access into the depths of the human body.
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