Design and Fabrication of a Motor Legged Capsule for the Active
Exploration of the Gastrointestinal Tract
Quirini , M. Menciassi, A. Scapellato, S. Stefanini, C. Dario,
P.
This paper appears in: Mechatronics, IEEE/ASME Transactions on
Publication Date: April 2008
Volume: 13, Issue: 2
This paper describes a novel solution for the active locomotion of a
miniaturized endoscopic capsule in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. In
particular, the authors present the design, development, and testing
of a legged locomotion system embedded in a capsule (with a volume of
about 4=965 cm$^3$ ) and actuated by a brushless minimotor. The
actuation mechanism and transmission mechanism are described in detail
in order to highlight the compactness of the overall design. This
device is provided with four superelastic legs, allowing large stroke
advancement in the GI tract, and a CMOS frontal camera, for diagnostic
purposes. A dedicated electronic board for controlling the opening
angle of the legs and adjusting their speed has been developed. In
order to investigate the motion ability of the device, a set of
experiments has been carried out. Four different types of superelastic
legs have been designed and tested with the objective to identify the
best leg configuration for capsule locomotion. Experimental results
demonstrate that the device can travel in the digestive tract with a
typical speed ranging between 10 and 40 mm/min.
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