You might call it “zoobotics.” Jessica Burgner-Kahrs, the director of the Continuum Robotics Lab at U of T Mississauga, and her team are building very slender, flexible and extensible robots, a few millimetres in diameter, for use in surgery and industry. Unlike humanoid robots, so-called continuum robots feature a long, limbless body – not unlike a snake’s – that allows them to access difficult-to-reach places.

Consider a neurosurgeon who needs to remove a brain tumour. Using a traditional, rigid surgical tool, the surgeon has to reach the cancerous mass by following a straight path into the brain, and risk poking through – and damaging – vital tissue. Burgner-Kahrs envisions a day when one of her snake-like robots, guided by a surgeon, would be able to take a winding path around the vital tissue but still reach the precise surgical site. Previously inoperable brain tumours might suddenly become operable. “It could revolutionize surgery,” she says.

Burgner-Kahrs, a computer scientist and mechanical engineer, says her lab is also developing a more advanced generation of continuum robots that are equipped with sensors and can partially steer themselves. A surgeon would have to operate the robot remotely with a computer, but the robot would know how to avoid obstacles and recognize its destination. A surgeon could deploy one of these robots to collect a tissue sample from the abdomen, for instance, or inject a cancer drug directly into a tumour in the lungs.

There are uses outside the human body, too. A continuum robot could slide through the interior of a jet engine, inspecting it for damage. The lab is experimenting with novel forms that are even more dexterous and extensible. One recent design, with potential search-and-rescue applications, is inspired by origami: it’s very light, and can elongate up to 10 times further than other designs.