Engineers at MIT and Caltech have demonstrated an ingestible sensor whose location can be monitored as it moves through the digestive tract, an advance that could help doctors more easily diagnose gastrointestinal motility disorders such as constipation, gastroesophageal reflux disease, and gastroparesis. The tiny sensor works by detecting a magnetic field produced by an electromagnetic coil located outside the body. The strength of the field varies with distance from the coil, so the sensor’s position can be calculated based on its measurement of the magnetic field. In the new study,…
