Development of a Funicular Flexible Crawler for Colonoscopy

Recently, the number of colorectal cancer and polyp patients has been increasing. Colonoscopies are often used for diagnosis and treatment of rectal and colon diseases. Passing an endoscope into the large intestine is an extremely difficult operation in conventional large intestine endoscopy. Therefore, many robots to facilitate that operation have been developed recently. Nevertheless, they cannot move independently or quickly. We propose a simple and compact crawler mechanism for colonoscopy. It is suitable for propulsion through narrow spaces because it is driven by a geared motor arranged outside of the body through a flexible shaft. Through experimentation with a large intestine phantom, we confirmed that the proposed crawler can run quickly from the anus to the cecum. As described herein, this propulsion mechanism is applicable for self-traveling colonoscopy.