Wireless Miniature Medical Soft Robots Inside Our Body

The complex internal biological environment of the human body presents numerous organ movement, spatial variations and constraints, and fluid flows, posing significant challenges to the mobility, positioning, and functional performance of wireless miniature medical robots within the body. To tackle these challenges, this work proposes shape-programmable and physically adaptable soft miniature magnetic robots with multimodal locomotion and versatile functionality. We specifically propose three types of wireless miniature soft milli-scale robot designs: a sheet-shaped magnetically controlled soft robot, a stent-shaped robot, and a balloon-shaped robot. These robots respectively demonstrate multimodal locomotion in physiologically relevant mockup and ex vivo environments, controllable movement and anchoring capability in vascular models with fluid flow, large output force (~ 70 N), and high work capacity (~ 175.2 J g −1 ). Thus, they can achieve adaptive locomotion and multiple medical functionality within confined fluid-filled body sites that are risky or impossible to access with current minimally invasive medical devices, such as catheters. These robot designs enable novel miniature medical devices for various clinical applications, including targeted/local drug delivery, embolization, blood clot opening, aneurysm treatment, balloon-angioplasty, in-situ sensing, and reversible stenting.