Bio-inspired Vacuum Driven Soft Robot for Esophageal Obstruction Removal

Esophagus foreign body obstruction is a common surgical emergency for which no dedicated extraction device exists. The paper presents a simple soft robotic medical device specifically designed for the removal of the esophagus foreign bodies, which has significant clinical application prospects. The biomimetic design of the soft robot is based on the movement characteristics of a chameleon's tongue during predation, consisting of a top recess and a surrounding protrusion. The top recess depresses downwards to form a vacuum zone, which sucks in the obstruction and creates a fold to achieve shape locking. The protrusions on both sides bend inwards, aiding the clamping of obstruction. The soft robot adapts to grasp obstructions with different physical characteristics. Design concept is introduced and structural optimization is conducted by finite element simulation. The experimental results on three optimized prototype demonstrate the effectiveness of the soft robot design and show good potential for its commercialization in future medical field.