Development of Bellows-Type Artificial Rubber Muscle and Application to Peristaltic Crawling Endoscopic Robot

This paper describes the development of bellows-type artificial rubber muscle and a peristaltic crawling robot attached to a large intestine endoscope using the artificialmuscle. Colorectal cancers can be cured completely if they are discovered early with a large intestine endoscope. While the endoscope can be used to screen and heal this cancer, its operation is difficult. In this study, to solve the difficulties, we propose a peristaltic crawling robot to subserve the endoscope. This robot can automatically move forward and pull up slacks. In addition, this robot can traverse bent pipes such as a splenic flexure because of bellows-type artificial muscle. Unlike other endoscopic robots, our robot can be attached to an endoscope, enabling us to benefit from the endoscope’s various functions. In this paper, we fabricated a bellows-type artificial muscle that enables the robot to pass through splenic flexures and apply the bellows-type artificial muscle to the robot. In addition we executed performance experiment in a bent pipe and experiment in large intestine.