Tiny robots that massage and check skin cancer

Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of America have recently developed a new type of robot capable of supporting screening for skin diseases, including skin. This helps people at high risk of early detection of the disease, thereby having timely treatment.

Named Skinbot , this robot is about the size of a fist and operates on a semi-automatic mechanism. Its legs have good adhesion on the skin and can move all over the body like leeches.

With the suction funnel legs, skinbot supports screening of skin diseases and also measures heart rate and parameters to assess muscle activity.

'Our idea is to create a compact robot that moves on your body , ' says Artem Dementyev, a graduate student at the Reactive Environmental Group, a research institute at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 'The ' cuticle robots' will stick directly to human skin through suction funnels, like a funnel used in massage. This is the first robot that can move on human skin. We have autonomous robots exploring Mars, so why not have a robot that can explore ourselves? '

Skinbot is the first robot to crawl on human skin.

Skinbot has extremely convincing features: a medical device that supports screening for skin diseases including skin cancer. While Skinbot crawls on human skin and the tester has a tingling sensation as if being gently massaged, the robot's sensor that collects skin information such as this skin is good, whether or not fungi cause disease, even tumors or not. All collected data is transmitted to the technician's computer.

'Skinbot is like a tiny doctor you can order home in a small box,' explains Artem Dementyev.

Artem Dementyev said: 'On the skinbot, there is a microscope attached to the skin. It can crawl to assess the signs of skin cancer or other skin problems even when you are sleeping. Skinbot knows the exact location and can record the change over time. Current technology cannot do this because they are not microscope mounted '.

In addition to assisting in screening for skin diseases, metal-ring funnels - which are the feet of Skinbot's robots, also measure heart rate and muscle performance parameters. These data will be very helpful to doctors when considering optimal treatments for patients.

However, it will take five years for us to own a 'tiny dermatologist' Skinbot.

Even so, Dementyev notes that the research team is still in the process of researching and improving Skinbot. To commercialize this product, they need at least 5 more years. From then until then, the team needed to solve some technical challenges such as removing the wires and adding automatic features to Skinbot to make it more ingenious.

Statistics of the American Academy of Dermatology and skin cancer are the most common cancers in the United States, with nearly 9,500 Americans diagnosed with skin cancer every day. However, skin cancer is a good prognosis if treated right at an early stage. So early detection of disease plays an important role.