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Miniature soft robots — road to the clinic

Nature Reviews Materials volume 3, pages 74–75 (2018)Cite this article

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Soft small robots offer the opportunity to non-invasively access human tissue to perform medical operations and deliver drugs; however, challenges in materials design, biocompatibility and function control remain to be overcome for soft robots to reach the clinic.

Untethered small robots have the unique capability to non-invasively access and navigate in difficult-to-reach, narrow areas inside our body and to perform therapeutic and diagnostic operations1. As a result, these robots could eliminate the need for an invasive procedure. Within the past decade, many synthetic rigid robots, ranging in size from several millimetres to a few micrometres, have been engineered for medical applications2. Recently, the design of tiny soft-bodied robots has brought the clinical translation of miniature robots within reach. These robots are physically intelligent and do not damage tissues owing to their size and soft nature. Moreover, their shape can be actively or passively programmed, which enables them to adapt to their surroundings and endows them with a large number of degrees of freedom. Although there have been promising developments in the last 7 years3,4, many scientific and technical challenges remain for researchers to overcome before the realization of untethered soft robots applicable for medical use.

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Acknowledgements

The author thanks all Physical Intelligence Department members at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems for their research contributions and discussions, and the Max Planck Society for funding the related research activities.

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  1. Physical Intelligence Department, Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Stuttgart, Germany

    Metin Sitti

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Correspondence to Metin Sitti.

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Sitti, M. Miniature soft robots — road to the clinic. Nat Rev Mater 3, 74–75 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41578-018-0001-3

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