Scientists are trialling a miniature robot that can perform remote-controlled surgery after unfolding itself inside a person's stomach.
Small enough to be hidden in a capsule made of ice and swallowed, the tiny electronic device can be steered around the stomach by doctors using a magnet field to move it into position to grab and extract foreign objects or repair internal injuries.
The robot is folded like an accordion when enclosed in the capsule. It contains a magnet that not only responds to external magnetic fields, but can also be used to pick up a button battery.
Nicknamed the "origami robot", the device has proved particularly useful for grabbing button batteries, of which 3,500 are accidentally swallowed in the US every year.
The mini robot propels itself using a "stick-slip" motion, in which it sticks to the stomach through friction when it executes a move, but slips free again when its body flexes to change its weight distribution.
Professor Daniela Rus, from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said: "It's really exciting to see our small origami robots doing something with potential important applications to health care.
"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."
Bradley Nelson, a professor of robotics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, said: "This concept is both highly creative and highly practical, and it addresses a clinical need in an elegant way."
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