Introduction
In medicine, one of the most popular techniques used to explore inside of human body is Endoscopy. The first endoscopic techniques appear in 1860s, however the most remarkable results have been seen in recent years. The introduction of robotic systems in the medical field has enabled the ability to steer and control traditional flexible endoscopes efficaciously, reducing patient discomfort and hospital stay. In addition, miniaturised technologies have broadened the means and ways to explore the human body. Such miniaturised devices in the form of capsules, have found application in wireless endoscopy and drug delivery. In general, the capsule is a small pill-‐like case containing a minute camera that the patient swallows reducing invasiveness. Once in the patient interior, collects data of the gastrointestinal tract and transmit it to a remote unit control.
State-‐of-‐the-‐art miniaturisation technologies are now boosting the development of endogenous medical tools to micro-‐scales. Amongst these ongoing research efforts, endowing micro-‐tools with effective locomotion would represent a major breakthrough, specially swimming microrobots through the bloodstream since they would have access to any part of the body. However many challenges have to be overcome to enable the swimming microrobot concept, for example the full characterisation of the fluidic medium and its dynamic behaviour at the micro-‐scale is needed. This investigation sets out to assess the dynamic interaction of potential body fluids with a suitable micro-‐ locomotion mechanism, to identify theoretical mechanism performances.
