Next time you need heart surgery, this little snakebot is going to make himself right at home deep inside your chest via a small hole in your solar plexus. It's CardioARM, and don't panic, he's here to help. Developed by CMU's Howie Choset, CardioARM has 102 joints (plus a camera for a head) and can be directed to slither around your vital organs with the utmost precision, making it unnecessary to 'crack open your chest,' which is apparently what they normally do when your ticker needs an overhaul.
Last February, CardioARM was successfully tested on a human for the first time, performing a diagnostic heart mapping procedure, which sounds like it was probably a pile o' fun for everyone involved. Dr. Choset has bigger plans for his snakebots, though:
"He hopes to test the device in other surgeries, such as ablation—which involves burning away a small amount of heart muscle to correct an abnormal beat."
Burning? Burning, you say? What, with lasers? We're giving these flesh-burrowing robot snakes lasers now? What else?!
“We’re hoping to use a remote-controlled robot to go through small caves in Egypt,” [Choset] says, “and find remains of ancient Egyptian tombs.”
Snakebots. Lasers. Ancient Egyptian tombs. Wow, I smell a blockbuster...
Evan Ackerman is a senior editor at IEEE Spectrum. Since 2007, he has written over 6,000 articles on robotics and technology. He has a degree in Martian geology and is excellent at playing bagpipes.