Abstract
A small intestine has been called "the dark continent": and with the help of a conventional endoscope, previously unknown affliction of the small intestine can now be investigated. Recently, double-balloon endoscope and capsule endoscope have been applied to the inspection of the small intestine; however, some limitations of those techniques are evident. In this study, for decreasing the pain and distress in patients, we proposed a multistage type endoscopic robot that moves by peristaltic crawling. This robot is attached to the head of a conventional endoscope. When the endoscopic robot reaches the small intestine, it detaches itself from the endoscope and moves forward to treat the affliction. In this paper, we developed the propulsion mechanism. In addition, we performed experiments by using an acrylic pipe and an elastic tube both of which have diameters equal to the average diameter of the small intestine. Satisfactory performances were obtained from the experiments.
