Development of Fluid Handling Capabilities for Autonomous Sampling Capsule

This work focusses on the design of a swallowable smart capsule to collect rumen samples from a cow's rumen and small intestine. The capsule (60 mm long × 25 mm diameter) passively travels along the cow's GI tract, identifies the region of interest, collects a sample, and chemically stabilizes it for offline omics analysis. Key components in the fluidic system include (i) a micro pump, (ii) valves, and (iii) a fluidic reservoir. As a preliminary design step, we investigated sample collection and reagent mixing protocols on a bench-top fluidic system. A model rumen sample (80% glycerol/water) of similar viscosity to rumen fluid was used in our research to evaluate pumping and mixing with a stabilizing reagent.