Feasibility proof of a legged locomotion capsule for the GI tract.

Background: A colonoscopy and a gastroscopy are the most important screening measures for malignant diseases in the GI tract. One of the main limitations is the lack of patient adherence to come in for a flexible endoscopy, especially in asymptomatic conditions.

Objective: The feasibility proof of a new generation of endoscopic capsules based on a novel propelling mechanism that features electromechanical legs.

An approach to capsular endoscopy with active motion.

This paper describes a novel approach to capsular endoscopy that takes advantage of active legged locomotion in the gastro intestinal tract. The basic and essential functions that such a microdevice must possess are listed and discussed in details, as well as the specific features required in the different districts of the digestive path. Active legged locomotion was selected to achieve the adequate degree of flexibility and accuracy during the capsule journey.

Assessment of walking features from foot inertial sensing.

An ambulatory monitoring system is developed for the estimation of spatio-temporal gait parameters. The inertial measurement unit embedded in the system is composed of one biaxial accelerometer and one rate gyroscope, and it reconstructs the sagittal trajectory of a sensed point on the instep of the foot. A gait phase segmentation procedure is devised to determine temporal gait parameters, including stride time and relative stance; the procedure allows to define the time intervals needed for carrying an efficient implementation of the strapdown integration, which allows to estimate stride length, walking speed, and incline.