The future of surgery may involve robotic devices that are soft and gentle to prevent unwanted damage, yet strong enough to be able to manipulate tissues. At MIT engineers are leading the way toward that future having developed robots made out of hydrogel and powered by water, that can, among other things, grab and release a live goldfish inside an aquarium. The device isn’t performing appendectomies quite yet, but it’s certainly illuminating what may be possible.
The components of the robot are hollow and are linked to external pumps via flexible tubes. Their shape is designed so that when water is moved in and out of them, the robots move and flex in pre-defined ways.
Hydrogels, composed mostly of water, are biocompatible and have a consistency similar to water, potentially making them particularly useful at working with extremely fragile tissues. Moreover, they are nearly transparent both visually and under ultrasound when placed in water. This characteristic may be beneficial when imaging the body using certain modalities while the hydrogel devices are still inside.
Here’s a short video demonstrating the powered hydrogel devices:
Study in Nature Communications: Hydraulic hydrogel actuators and robots optically and sonically camouflaged in water…
Via: MIT…