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Robotics Science

The Diagnostic 'Bugbot' 138

Posted by samzenpus from the not-chewable dept.
Roland Piquepaille writes "The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that a robot combined with a swallowable camera could give doctors a better look inside the small intestine. This medical robot, dubbed 'bugbot,' is being developed at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in its NanoRobotics Laboratory. It will measure less than 800 nanometers in diameter and will transmit thousands of images during its trip inside yourself with its embedded camera. With the six legs attached to the microrobot, CMU researchers want to give more control to camera operators, such as coming back to a suspected lesion. This robot should be ready for human inspection within 2 to 3 years and opens the way for future nanorobots. This overview contains more details about this project."
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The Diagnostic 'Bugbot' More

The Diagnostic 'Bugbot'

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  • Those Few Last Few Minutes... (Score:4, Funny)

    by geomon ( 78680 ) on Monday May 30, 2005 @07:25PM (#12679428) Homepage Journal
    at the end of the food chute are going to look rough in the editing room.

    I'd heard that someone had developed a device like this a few years back, but the thing that I wondered about was control. I guess the early models were the ones that I had heard about, because they didn't have any external operational control.

    I hope the bug pulls its legs out before the big exit.

    • Too much information below: (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Create an Account ( 841457 ) on Monday May 30, 2005 @07:41PM (#12679539)
      I've had a colonoscopy (I had colon cancer when I was 34; it's cool, I'm all better now) and they make well sure that you are all 'cleaned out' prior to the procedure. I'm sure it's the same with this.

      First, you take a powerful laxative. This tastes like toxic 7-up. Make sure your bathroom is well-stocked.

      Then the next day you drink a GALLON of electrolytic fluid (like soapy gatorade) over the course of a couple of hours. You will have nuclear diarrhea for a while. This is way worse (the diarrhea) than you get from the chemotherapy (depending on what drugs you get; I got leukovorin and 5FU).

      Even with all of this, swallowing the camera would be way better than the old way. Let me just say that the cable on the camera they use on the other end is over 7 feet long. I'm not even 6 feet tall. *shudders*

      • Important information below: (Score:5, Informative)

        by tverbeek ( 457094 ) on Monday May 30, 2005 @09:08PM (#12680094) Homepage
        I just had a colonoscopy on Friday, the first of what I expect will be several over the course of my remaining life, as there's colon cancer in the family and I'm now in the age range where Things Start To Go Kerflooey.

        Frankly, given the build-up I'd heard, I was disappointed at how unpleasant the whole procedure was not . Yeah, going a day without solid food beforehand was a nuisance, and the induced diarrhea (and the accompanying lack of sleep, since my procedure was first thing in the morning, and the last dose of laxative has to be taken 5 hours prior) wasn't exactly fun. But by far the most unpleasant part of the whole experience was the mundane discomfort of repeated wiping. (Tip: instead of TP, use your bathtub as a bidet and a plush towel to dry off.)

        The procedure itself? The drugs they give you send you so far into la-la land that it won't bother you, and the guys who find the very notion of someone exploring their rectum discomforting on a homophobic psychological level will be relieved that they won't even remember the experience. It's a bit like a drugged date rape with signed consent forms. :) Seriously, there was absolutely no residual pain, and a few days later it's as if it never happened... except for the fact that I now know that my colon is healthy, rather than hoping and wondering.

        The bottom line (no pun intended): If there's any history of colon cancer in your family and you're over 40, or your doctor recommends it for any other reason, don't wait for nanobots or whatever to get your colon checked out. Better to have a camera shoved up your ass now than to have your colon turned into a semi-colon and get put on chemo a few years from now.

        • "The procedure itself? The drugs they give you send you so far into la-la land that it won't bother you"

          Want to really feal it? Request no drugs. I didn't know that sedatives were an option when I had mine*. I now have made it a point to grill the Dr. about nearly every procedure I'm expected to go through.

          *fsking HMO's being too fsking cheap.
          -nB
        • I've had four coloscopy exams (and the last time, the surgeon said that I didn't need any more - phew). The first time, I got some pretty strong stuff which was ...interesting. I lay there on the bed wearing a "easy-to-open-in-the-back-shirt", when the nurse injected a mixture of valium-derivate and morphine-derivate. About 10-15 seconds later i hit, and I can swear I could feel the drugs working their way through finer and finer arteries. After that, I was pretty much (but not altogether) gone.

          However, th
          • YEah, last one I had (family history again: I've been screened twice and I'm 35) I was pretty well sedated, but the discomfort from the gas they pump in to inflate the colon was still noticeable. Like really bad gas in your sleep.

            I feel quite moved to have read so many personal experiences about people having their insides inspected. Shouldn't we form a support group or something?

            Chuck
            • Actually, maybe it's good that people are talking about this. Colon cancer is the second biggest cancer killer in the US (after lung), but there's a 90% survival rate if it's caught early. The procedure still sounds pretty embarrassing, but it helps to hear from people who've gone through it already.
        • That procedure may be in my future soon, due to the family history thing. I tried telling the doctor that the only thing that a specialist was likely to find up my butt was my head, but she was insistent. So it's not something I'm exactly looking forward to, but it's probably better than the alternative.
        • But by far the most unpleasant part of the whole experience was the mundane discomfort of repeated wiping. (Tip: instead of TP, use your bathtub as a bidet and a plush towel to dry off.)
          You might also try buying a packet of the flushable baby-wipes. I picked some up when I was going through a bout of discomfort and I've never looked back. You only really need one per visit and the material is durable enough that you can even insert a corner of it and swab out the inside.
    • Yeah, A few years ago (it was on the front page of one of the Oregonian sections. Why, i don't know). It was basically a pill with an LED and a tiny camera. You swallowed the pill (no chewing!) and it transmitted pictures of your insides.

  • A Real Pain in the ...... (Score:4, Funny)

    by rueger ( 210566 ) * on Monday May 30, 2005 @07:26PM (#12679436) Homepage
    Well, having just experienced my very first colonoscopy [nih.gov] I must say this development leaves me with mixed feelings.

    One one hand this "bug" is way smaller than what explored my nether regions.

    On the other hand the drugs that they gave me at the clinic while doing the procedure were very good!

    • You must have been given funkier drugs than I was; you go from fully-conscious to zonked and not-remembering pretty much instantly, and when you wake up again you feel slightly dozey in a rather boring way for a few minutes, but that wears off really quickly. No hallucinations, not even the not-quite-there feeling you get from too much booze.

      You certainly wouldn't bother taking them for recreation, put it that way...

    • Lucky you, I only got osme KY. No drugs or numbing at all. :(
    • My father told me he was going to the doctor for a colonoscopy. Calmly, he said, "Son, the doctor is going to find out something that I've kept secret all these years." Not knowing any better, I bit by asking, "What's that?" He grinned, and said, "I'm still a virgin."

      "Tommy the Barber",08.04.29-05.10.05

  • 800 nm ??? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by BurntNickel ( 841511 ) on Monday May 30, 2005 @07:28PM (#12679458)
    800 nanometers seems way too small. That's on the order of one wavelength of visible light. I think someone got the units wrong.
    • That was my thought, since I have a laser that's at 532nm
      They obviously don't mean mm, since that'd be... ah, rather large, so I imagine it's inbetween.
    • Thats true. From what we see of hardware these days, things don't get much more accurate than 90nm processes, and something as complex as this would need much more fine construction. Its possible to create something on the scale of 800 nm, but it wouldn't be something that could be mass produced. (They'd probably want to rescue the little bot for re-use...)
    • I think visible light is measured in angstroms (spelling?), which are 10^(-10)m, and nanometers are 10^(-6). So about 10,000 wavelengths of visible light (though I think one is about 5000 angstroms, so perhaps only 1600 wavelenghts, but that's still quite a bit more than one. Someone check my work, please.
      • A nanometer is 10^-9, a micrometer is 10^-6. Wrong units.
      • Nope. Visible light is in the range 380-740 nm [wikipedia.org].

        Some (usually older in my experience) devices do use angstroms for the display of light wavelengths, but they have 4 digit displays (since you just add a zero to go from nanometers to angstroms).

        • YOU INSENSITVE CLOD! (Score:1, Funny)

          by Anonymous Coward
          Not everyone sees those wavelengths, some people have limited vision.

          However I myself, along with my mother and brother have the ability to see UV so I'm offended that you lump us in with your pathetic minimalist vision!

          I have personally been tested at the University Of Alberta and am able to see UVA and some UVB.

          What does this mean? Not much really, I lead a normal life dispite my super powers. Actualy I know another gentleman who also has this genetic difference so it's not really super.

          We see many ma
    • Yeah, how about micrometers (10^-6 meters) instead? That would give this thing a diameter of about 0.8 millimeters, which is a lot more believable. Still pretty small for a camera.
    • If you visit the story that's linked to in the post, there's a photograph [post-gazette.com] of the unit. It's about 2 finger-widths long on the guy's hand, which is probaly about 20-30mm. So who really knows...
    • No, no, no. Those units MUST be wrong.

      800.0 mm (millimeters)
      Any mechanical bug this big belongs on the
      battlefield, not in a clinical setting.

      80.0 mm (millimeters)
      That is one big bug. It doesn't need 6 legs,
      it needs tank treads.

      8.00 mm (millimeters)
      Okay, this sounds a bit more reasonable, but
      still rather big to have 6 legs.

      0.80 mm (millimeters)
      On this scale, it would be more like a swarm
      of gnats. With some AI and BT or RFID feed-
      back, a swarm of probes this

  • Neo.... (Score:3, Funny)

    by 3seas ( 184403 ) on Monday May 30, 2005 @07:32PM (#12679485) Homepage Journal
    ... you've been bugbotted...

  • WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ColaMan ( 37550 ) on Monday May 30, 2005 @07:34PM (#12679500) Journal
    800nm diameter? That doesn't make any sense! 800nm is close to visible light wavelengths. Could be tricky to design a camera when the wavelengths you want to record are the same size as the camera.
    Hmm, and a quick scan the linked articles don't really mention 800nm.... Was someone just pulling that number out of their ass, roland?

    And please stop linking to your summaries of the artice, which simply cut'n'paste the first linked article with a few bits of filler.
    • The 800 nm is in the blog entry and I do believe it is in the wrong units.
    • Throw on a Carl Zeise Lens on that bad boy and all your problems magically disappear.
    • " 800nm diameter? That doesn't make any sense! 800nm is close to visible light wavelengths. Could be tricky to design a camera when the wavelengths you want to record are the same size as the camera."

      The photo of the prototype makes me think a reasonable supposition is the diameter is less than 8 millimeters. Probably the blogger is one of the math challenged...

    • Re:WTF? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by modecx ( 130548 ) on Monday May 30, 2005 @07:59PM (#12679662)
      I was thinking the exact same thing, then I scan back up to see what weirdo submitted this, ahh, good 'ol Roland Piquepaille.

      *slaps forehead*

    • Re:WTF? (Score:2, Informative)

      by LiquidCoooled ( 634315 )
      It looks like the 800nm bot has been mixed up with this bugbot.

      The article referencing the bugbot (here [post-gazette.com]) shows a picture with a mini gut walking bot prototype at least 2-3cm in length.

      The Nanorobotics site (here [cmu.edu]) shows a drug delivery bot that they do claim will have to be 800nm wide (here [cmu.edu]). They are saying there that it must be that thin to be injectable.
    • 800nm diameter? That doesn't make any sense!

      Yeah, exactly my thought. I also didn't see it in the article, but the link to the nanolab has a link for "surgical swimming robots" and on that page they say that for their applications it has to be less than 800 micrometers, not nanometers.

      A wee bit of a difference there. 800 microns is still pretty small. It seems like you'd end up with a pinhole camera with a pretty tiny hole, and what size focal plane? There isn't a whole lot of light in your intestine
      • There isn't a whole lot of light in your intestines, either, unless someones been pumping a bit of sunshine.

        Gives a whole new meaning to blowing sunshine up your ass. I use "your" metaphorically there :)
    • 800nm diameter? That doesn't make any sense! 800nm is close to visible light wavelengths. Could be tricky to design a camera when the wavelengths you want to record are the same size as the camera

      I'd like to think that the robot is 800mm. Anyone who is not a sword swallower or a porn star need not apply for clinical trials. And we can all tell Mr. Roland where he can put his 800mm 'bugbot'.
      On a related note, is samzenpus temulent? You would think all the editors would know that posting Roland would

    • It could very well be 800nm. You can have a photosensor that is less than half a wavelength, as the same principals apply to both radio waves and light waves (for the most part) otherwise, to recieve an AM radio signal, you would need a 300 meter (I was going to use the abbreviation 'm', but dicided that ambiguity wasn't good) antenna, whereas the antenna on your car is not 300 meters long, probably closer to 3 feet or ~1 meter. Yes, the photosensors would be expensive, because for the bot to be practical,
      • You can use shorter antennas indeed. Very short ones are called electric dipoles and their resolution is moreless independent of the length (and bad). To get the resolution (as you describe) you NEED a large antenna/aperture/lens/...

    • Re:WTF? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by iotaborg ( 167569 ) <exa@soft h o m e . net> on Monday May 30, 2005 @11:13PM (#12680902) Homepage
      (disclaimer: I'm affiliated with the nanorobotics group)

      This robot is most certainly not 800nm in diameter, and never will be, that dimension is definetely inaccurate (and isn't even cited on the actual news paper article). It's not even feasible to have such a small robot, as the control aspect would be hell, and it would not be able to grip the walls of the intestine (which is where the control mechanically comes from). The goal of this project is not to develop a capsule to image the intestine (this already exists! google for the Norika capsule products, and is in use). Rather it is to design a *controllable* capsule, that can be teleoperated. Current solutions involve swollowing the capsule and let it image 'randomly'. This project is to improve this aspect of such a robot, which would give surgeons an advantage when performing colonoscopies or similar - as they can specifically target certain sites to image reliably.

      And it's most certainly not a "nanorobot".
    • Hmm, and a quick scan the linked articles don't really mention 800nm.... Was someone just pulling that number out of their ass, roland?

      No, someone wasn't reading TFA:
      "This medical robot, dubbed 'bugbot,' is being developed at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in its NanoRobotics Laboratory. It will measure less than 800 nanometers in diameter and will transmit."

    • I think it's a typo. The camera really is 800mm in diameter. To paraphrase Futurama...

      Patient: I can't swallow something 800mm in diameter!
      Doctor: Well, it's a good thing this is a suppository.

  • Or.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by sik0fewl ( 561285 ) <xxdigitalhellxxNO@SPAMhotmail.com> on Monday May 30, 2005 @07:38PM (#12679521) Homepage

    This robot should be ready for human consumption within 2 to 3 years and opens the way for future nanorobots.

    At least.. I hope that's how it goes in..

  • Seems like most of the critters that live inside the intestines are worm-shaped, not bug-shaped, so I'd think you'd want to build some sort of robotic worm or snake.
    • some sort of robotic worm or snake.

      I had my money laid on "Yoda Doll"
    • Legs are easier. When you are making a small robot it is much easier to just put a stick on the end of an actuator. Current robotic worms or snakes generally have a flexible skin with complex motors to flex the body in order to replicate worm movement. Designing a robotic worm the size of a pill would be difficult and likely unreliable given the amount of parts neccessary.

  • The Magnificent Journey (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    http://www.givenimaging.com/ [givenimaging.com] make the only existing swallowable endoscopy camera on the market, and yes, the drugs for conventional endoscopy are a solid hit.

  • soil samples? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by moviepig.com ( 745183 ) on Monday May 30, 2005 @07:42PM (#12679542)
    With the six legs attached to the microrobot, CMU researchers want to [be able to come] back to a suspected lesion.

    This eye-robot, on its less-than-fantastic voyage, should soon thereafter be able to retrieve tiny tissue samples, too. Locomotion can't be much easier than prospecting...

  • I would think that a spring-loaded double-screw drive would be better than legs. The front half of the probe would have a right-handed screw and the back-half of the unit woud have a left-handed screw. A motor would drive the front half relative to the back-half -- screwing the front half to pull the unit forward and unscrewing the back half to also push the unit forward. A set of spring arms on the front half would gently rub against the intestinal wall and use a mutli-spectral scanner to do a quick ch
    • Your idea has put uncomfortable images in my head! How would the screw drives actually make the bug move about ? Would the bug need to expand to fit the tube it's in for traction ? (this is the image in my head ... not nice)
  • I'm confused.

    How can something the with of two fingers be considered "nano-technology" ???

    -- Duder

  • 800 nm refers to an injectable robot (Score:3, Insightful)

    by tbuckner ( 861471 ) on Monday May 30, 2005 @07:58PM (#12679659)
    Swallowable cameras already exist; the 800nm diameter robot is still on the drawing board; it would have to be that small to be injected, not swallowed, and might be used for drug deliver or other tasks.
  • Given that the gate length of 1 transistor for VLSI production technologies is currently greater than 800nm.
  • am I the only one who was reminded of the "Bug" in the Matrix?
  • "such as coming back to a suspected lesion." I don't know what my mind is today. I thought that said lesbian.
  • The legged devices thus far do not incorporate a camera and are not designed to be swallowed. - TFA

    ... In other headlines, "Medicinal remedy could cure all forms of cancer."

  • Bored and don't know what to do for a party? Intestine Rally Championships Line up a bunch of contestants Issue each with a Nanobot, laxetive and a bucket. Tune it into the big screen and your away.

  • I'm scheduled tomorrow morning 10:30 CST for the mighty Butt Periscope(tm). I wouldn't push mine back even if they had a two week delivery timeframe, but this medical stuff moves *way* too slowly for my taste ...
    • I think the problem with using mobile robots would be making sure they don't burrow their way outside your intestines and cause major damage around your body.
      The current swallowable pill type devices are looking promising, but suffer from not being able to go back and examine in great detail a portion they just past.
      Your uncomfortable procedure is currently the best change the doctors have to diagnose your problem without fully invasive surgery.

      Good luck tomorrow.
    • By far the worst part of the whole thing is the bowel prep; as others have pointed out, the drugs they give you are sufficiently potent that you probably won't remember a thing about the whole procedure.

      As the bowel prep part of the job hasn't changed, it's just a matter of not having to be sedated and having the hassle of having to be driven home afterwards.

      If you're sufficiently conscious, make sure you ask for the pictures afterwards :)

  • ... I thought of a program crawling the internet, looking for bugs in websites.

    Hey, to me, 'bug' means 'error'!

  • There was an old lady who swallowed a fly.
    I don't why she swallowed a fly,
    Perhaps she'll die.

    There was an old lady who swallowed a spider,
    That wriggled and jiggled and wiggled inside her.
    She swallowed the spider to catch the fly.
    But I dunno why she swallowed that fly -
    Perhaps she'll die.

    Yes .. suppose it gets stuck?
  • Gives a new meaning to debugging...

    Sitti, Lebovitz and Appasamy suggested it may someday be possible to use a legged camera introduced through the anus as a substitute for traditional colonoscopy.
  • ... that neither the Pittburgh Gazzette nor Roland Piquepaille's summary gives other than the barest reference to the existing, FDA-approved technology developed by Israeli-based Given Imaging [slashdot.org] to do this sort of thing, the PillCam.

    The PillCam is a small capsule containing a camera, light, battery, and wireless transmitter that sends images to a receiver belt worn by the patient as the capsule tumbles its way through the intestinal tract.

    The only thing new offered in this bit of "news", is the thought of at

  • George swallows the pill, but it goes into a mummy on display at the local museum, and the doctor thinks he's dying.. ahh the Jetson's prior-art strikes again.

  • JFC (Score:2, Informative)

    by vonsneerderhooten ( 254776 )
    This Roland guy's getting on my nerves. Do yourself a favor and add these lines to you hosts file.
    127.0.0.1 primidi.com
  • As a radiologist, I've been following the development of this technology with interest. Capsule endoscopy, as it's currently known, is already in fairly widespread use in clinical practice at many centers. It's currently considered a good investigative technique for the small bowel (the part of the bowel approximately from the stomach to the colon), and it rivals other standard methods of imaging for this segment of the GI tract (see this article [rsnajnls.org] for example). Briefly, a capsule the size of a large pill
  • I for one welcome our new injested nanorobot overlords.
  • "Buttbot" more appropriate ?
  • Well then, Good News! It's a suppository.

  • So... (Score:2, Funny)

    by plaxion ( 98397 )
    when the developers claim that the QA department is refusing to sign off on the build because they have a bug up their ass we can take their comment literally?
  • they had bugbot or was that bugbombs
  • I wonder what software it runs and what happens if it crashes!? Could be rather painful!
  • Anyone ever read "Prey?" I just finished it this weekend, then this story pops up on /. Too awesome for words. "Mommy? why is the robot eating me?"

    http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0061015725/ref=sib _rdr_fc/002-0807562-9362450?_encoding=UTF8&p=S001# reader-page [amazon.com]

  • A virtual colonoscopy is probably a much better option. You still need to take the laxatives, but there is no real colonoscopy. Instead a 3d image is generated from a CT scan. The doctor can then do a virtual colonoscopy on his pc. Advantages: Takes less time Not an invasive procedure No sedation needed Disadvantages: Not possible to take biopsies during the procedure, so in some cases a real colonoscopy will be needed afterwarts.
  • Please have marketting send my check to . . .

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