Miniaturized robotic devices for endoluminal diagnosis and surgery: a single-module and a multiple-module approach.

This contribution presents the authors' activity in the field of miniaturized robots for surgical and diagnostic tasks with an endoluminal or a minimally invasive approach. Robotic capsules for diagnostic purposes in the gastrointestinal tract and endoluminal or transluminal robot concepts with bimanual abilities for surgical tasks will be presented, by highlighting the peculiarities of both approaches in terms of advantages, limitations and design challenges.