Ingestible Chip Tracks Devices in the Body

Sep-13-17 The ATOMS swallowable transmitter chip could allow doctors to track microscale devices as they roam the body.

As ingestible diagnostic devices come closer to reality, tracking the devices could prove helpful—or even necessary. To that end, researchers from CalTech created what they term ATOMS (addressable transmitters operated as magnetic spins). Based on the same principle of MRI technology, the tiny device contains a magnetic field sensor, antennas, wireless power source, and a specialized location circuit. By responding to the changing magnetic field that surrounds it, the ATOMS is able to transmit its location in the body to an external source.

According to Mikhail Shapiro, "You could have dozens of microscale devices traveling around the body taking measurements or intervening in disease. These devices can all be identical, but the ATOMS devices would allow you to know where they all are and talk to all of them at once."

More Info about this Invention:

[INNOVATORSMAG.COM]
[CALTECH.EDU]

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