Origami Meat Robot Can Remove Debris from Your Belly

MIT researchers have developed an ingestible robot, made from folded meat, which can perform tasks within the stomach that range from removing foreign objects that have been accidentally swallowed to repairing tissue damage. The tiny droid, made from a folded sheet of pig intestine, could herald a revolution in exploring and treating the human body.

The origami robot, developed in partnership with researchers from the University of Sheffield and the Tokyo Institute of Technology, is swallowed in capsule form, unfolds within the body, and can be steered around the stomach via external magnetic fields. In tests, the robot was able to successfully remove a battery from a simulated stomach.

“It’s really exciting to see our small origami robots doing something with potential important applications to health care,” Daniela Rus, the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Professor in MIT’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Director of MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), said in a press release. “For applications inside the body, we need a small, controllable, untethered robot system. It’s really difficult to control and place a robot inside the body if the robot is attached to a tether.”

The biggest problem the researchers faced in the design of the origami robot was moving it in an environment full of fluid. In order to combat the issue, the scientists developed a “stick-slip” system to help move or tether the robot, as appropriate.

“In our calculation, 20 percent of forward motion is by propelling water — thrust — and 80 percent is by stick-slip motion,” Shuhei Miyashita, former postdoc at CSAIL and current lecturer in Electronics at the University of York, said. “In this regard, we actively introduced and applied the concept and characteristics of the fin to the body design, which you can see in the relatively flat design.”

While the robot is still a work-in-progress, the researchers are confident that their work will expand the range of possibilities for exploratory medicine.