World's tiniest biomedical robot developed by HKUST engineers

Engineering researchers from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology have developed the world’s smallest multifunctional biomedical robot, which is capable of imaging and high-precision motion and multifunctional operations such as sampling, drug delivery and laser ablation.

The robot, developed by an associate professor at the Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering Shen Yajing and his team, has a slim profile of 0.95 millimeters -- 60 percent smaller than current models.

Shen said the tiny robot holds tremendous potential for clinical applications as it managed to achieve compactness, precise navigation and visualized functional treatment all in one.

“Our study provides a significant solution for developing a surgical robot aimed at achieving early diagnosis and therapeutic goals in hard-to-reach areas of the body,” he said.

The robot is made with four major components, including an optical fiber array for capturing images inside the body, a custom tool for delivering treatments precisely where needed, a hollow skeleton to hold the fibers and tools in place, and a functionalized skin that enables precise control of the robot's movements.

The team used a microscale 3D printer to create the hollow skeleton while the skin was produced through a magnetic spray technique, which helps keep the robot small and allows it to glide easily during surgery.

This enabled the robot’s high-definition imaging performance, with an extended obstacle detection distance of up to around 9.4mm, a tenfold improvement from theoretical limits.

It also achieves a motion precision of less than 30 μm and can substantially widen the imaging region by 25 times the inherent view.

The team successfully tested the robot's functions within in vitro bronchial models and ex-vivo porcine lungs and will further improve the robot’s features.

Their findings have been recently published in Nature Communications, a peer-reviewed scientific journal.

(Ayra Wang)