Robots are amazing creations, especially tiny ones that allow us to visit places that we would normally have trouble accessing. Some researchers in Singapore have managed to come up with a tiny robot designed to combat stomach cancer. Apparently the creators of the robot were inspired after having a seafood dinner one day. Resembling a tiny crab, the robot features a pincer and a hook; and is mounted on an endoscope which is then fed through a patient’s mouth to reach his/her stomach.
The robot uses its crab-like pincer to grab tissue that can be removed and uses a hook to cut the tissue and cauterize it to stop the bleeding. The operating surgeon uses a camera on the endoscope to see what’s going on and to control the robot accurately. While the crab-like robot has already been in use to successfully remove some early-stage stomach cancer in as many as five patients in India and Hong Kong, it’ll be about another three years before it becomes commercially available.