i-Snake: yet another flexible surgical robot

Filed under: Robots

A robot that crawls through your innards? Yeah, we've been there, done that on a number of occasions, but a new alternative being developed by a team at Imperial College London could reportedly "revolutionize keyhole surgery." The aforementioned crew has been granted some £2.1 million ($4.19 million) in order to further develop the i-Snake, which is a "long tube housing special motors, sensors and imaging tools." Apparently, the creation would be used in heart bypass surgeries, to "diagnose problems in the gut and bowel" and to generally act as a surgeon's hands / eyes in hard to reach locales within the body. Per usual, we've no idea when it'll be ready for mainstream use, but hopefully the i-Snake will be slithering through citizens sooner rather than later.

 

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