BASEL, Switzerland, July 19 (World Daily Times) — A future dental visit may look very different if a University of Basel robot makes it into clinics. The research team says its miniature robot, called MIR, could one day help prepare teeth for crowns and reduce the number of appointments needed.
For now, though, the key point for patients is simple: this is not a treatment option yet. The robot described in the paper published in IEEE Transactions on Medical Robotics and Bionics is a laboratory prototype, and the sources provided do not show any human testing or regulatory clearance.
What is MIR?
MIR stands for Miniature Intraoral Robot. The University of Basel research team describes it as about the size of a wine cork, measuring 43 by 26 by 28 millimeters.
The design is meant to fit inside the mouth on a custom dental splint made from a patient scan. The motors and control systems stay outside the mouth, connected to the robot by flexible drive shafts, cables and tubes, according to the University of Basel researchers.
Dr. Yukiko Tomooka, the paper’s first author, said the robot “is designed to be small enough to fit comfortably into an open mouth.”
How would it be used?
The idea is to make crown preparation faster and simpler. In the workflow described by the researchers, a patient would first get a scan. A dentist could then plan the crown preparation digitally and order the crown right away, which could remove the need for a second appointment later.
That is the promise behind the project. It is not a description of current care.
What did the lab tests show?
The University of Basel team tested the robot on synthetic resin tooth models and on a ceramic material with hardness similar to tooth enamel. In those tests, the reported positional error was less than 0.2 millimeters.
The researchers also reported drilling forces below 5 newtons.
Those results are encouraging for an early prototype, but the setup still has limits. The current version does not yet have sensors that directly measure or correct its position.
What still has to happen before it could reach patients?
Professor Georg Rauter, the research group leader, said the next step is to add sensors and a camera so MIR can track where it is and how treatment is progressing. He said the goal is to do that without making the robot larger.
Rauter also said the team wants the system to be able to resume work after a power outage using sensor data.
That kind of upgrade matters because dentistry is not just about drilling accurately. A clinical system has to know where it is at every moment, stay stable, and keep working safely even if something goes wrong.
Should patients expect this soon?
Not yet, based on the information released so far. The sources describe a prototype tested in the lab, not a device in regular dental practice.
So if a crown is needed now, MIR does not change current treatment decisions. Its importance is longer term: it shows one way engineers are trying to make dental work more precise and possibly reduce the number of visits in the future.
The University of Basel project page lists collaborators including the Clinic of Reconstructive Dentistry at the University of Zurich, BIROMED-Lab, Camlog Biotechnologies and the University of Bern’s ARTORG Center, and says the project is sponsored by Innosuisse, Switzerland’s innovation agency.
