Abstract
There are diseases of the small intestine such as Crohn’s disease or Polyp that cause Intussusception. These diseases were not discovered before using an conventional endoscope and the small intestine was called “The Dark Continent”. Recently, these diseases are inspected by a Double-Balloon Endoscope or Capsule Endoscope. However, the method used for these inspections have a few problems. Therefore, we proposed a new method of inspecting the small intestine. Utilizing our past research, we developed a robot for the small intestine using peristaltic crawling. The robot is attached to a conventional endoscope. When the endoscope reaches the small intestine, the robot is detached from the endoscope and moves forward and observes and treats the afflictions. In this paper, we fabricated the prototype and experimented in an acrylic pipe and elastic tube. In addition, we confirmed that the robot and endoscope can be separated in any place.
