Many of us don’t find colonoscopy appealing. It can save your life but can be an uncomfortable procedure. In the future, robots will take care of that. Researchers are exploring a soft everting robot for colonoscopy. This robot uses a 18mm diameter tube made from stretchable fabric that can grow 1.6m at the tip. Its elastomer manipulator is pneumatically driven and can be steered over 180-degrees. This robot can be teleoperated with joysticks. It can also navigate autonomously using sensors.
[Authors: Jialei Shi, Korn Borvorntanajanya, Kaiwen Chen, Enrico Franco, and Ferdinando Rodriguez y Baena]