Kirigami-Structured Electronic Capsule for Long-Term Continuous Gastric Monitoring

Ingestible electronic systems have long promised non-invasive sensing inside the gastrointestinal tract, but short operational lifetimes, uncontrolled transit, and unreliable wireless communication have stalled clinical adoption. Now, a team from MIT and Brigham and Women’s Hospital has unveiled a gastric-resident robotic platform that overcomes these hurdles. The capsule integrates a bioinspired, electrically triggered release mechanism with a kirigami-enabled electronic architecture. Kirigami—the Japanese art of paper cutting—is applied to a flexible printed circuit board (FPCB) that spans both the capsule body and deployable superelastic arms. This allows high-density integration of sensing, power management, and wireless modules within a constrained volume while tolerating large mechanical deformation during gastric residence.

Stable retention is achieved using thermally responsive polycaprolactone joints that transition from rigid to compliant states under electrical activation, avoiding dependence on variable chemical triggers. Reliable telemetry in the highly attenuating gastric environment is maintained via a dual-band Bluetooth Low Energy and sub-gigahertz module with RSSI- and throughput-aware adaptive transmission, balancing link robustness and energy consumption. In swine studies, the capsule demonstrated week-long continuous monitoring of gastric radiation exposure, enabling early detection of dose accumulation. After the monitoring period, electrical activation triggered safe disassembly and gastrointestinal passage. This work establishes kirigami-enabled integration as a scalable strategy for long-term gastric-resident robotic systems, opening avenues for continuous physiological monitoring without external wearables.