In the future, tablet-shaped robots could perform some surgical operations without injuring the body.

A new publication by the Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems of ETH Zurich shows how such surgical bio-microrobots might function.

Surgical operations with open wounds are increasingly being replaced by non-invasive techniques extending even to systems that enable operations without a single scar.

Bio-microrobotics has a decisive role in this development.

ARES scientists are currently developing micro-robots with controllable insect-like legs with which the “robot pills” would be able to move around in the stomach.

the patient swallows not one but several “robot pills” fitted with individual functions, such as the controller or forceps for tissue sampling.

The pills can be swallowed one after another and assemble themselves automatically to form a larger, more powerful system only when they reach the stomach.