The SAW robot could one day be miniaturized and sent to slither through the intestines to
provide views of the interior spaces.
Credit: David Zarrouk
A tiny, swallowable robot that snakes its way through the small intestines could one day be used to actively visualize the digestive system.
The robot, called SAW (single actuator wave-like robot), moves in a wave-like motion and can travel through the extremely squishy environment of the small intestine.
"The external shape of the robot is a 2D projection of a rotating helix. The result is a continuously moving wave. We can simply reverse the direction by reversing the direction of rotation of the motor," said one of the robot's inventors, David Zarrouk, a mechanical engineer at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. [11 Surprising Facts About the Digestive System] https://www.livescience.com/58434-wave-robot-inches-through-intestines.html
