Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have developed a robotic surgical assistant with tiny adhesive hands, which will allow doctors to see what’s going on in a particular area inside the body of a patient.

Pill bots are not new. For many years doctors have used tiny machines, often attached to a camera, to see what is going on inside a patient, however, it is the adhesive hands which make this product unique.

Once swallowed by the patient, the doctor will be able to control the adhesive hands which can stick to internal surfaces where the doctor chooses. The control will allow the doctor to focus more on the part of the body causing the problem, rather than leaving it to chance. In addition to providing an accurate insight into the body of the patient, once at the required site, this pill bot is also able to deliver drugs and other treatment applications.

According to the developers, the toughest part of creating the pill bot was finding an adhesive that would stick to various tissues without ripping or damaging them. Adhesives that stick once already exist, but finding one that would stick and then ‘unstick’ proved more difficult.

While a solution was found, the researchers acknowledge there is still a lot more testing to do, and advances to be made with the technology.