Review of the swallowing system and process for a biologically mimicking swallowing robot

The consumption of liquid and solid foods is primal to the maintenance of adequate hydration and nutrition in man. Ingestion is a complex process where palatable material is broken down and discretized into boluses after which they are conveyed to the stomach for digestion. There exists difficulty in monitoring the efficacy of bolus transport through the deglutitive apparatus in vivo, especially in patients which exhibit pathological difficulties. To understand the effects of bolus rheology on the deglutition process we propose to develop a bio-mimetic mechatronic swallowing device. This will facilitate investigation of the rheological properties as the bolus is in transit to determine how they interact with the swallowing process. These properties are of interest to food technologists who aim to develop foods for meeting consumer acceptance of various requirements, such as for dysphagic populations to facilitate safe swallowing. The purpose of this review is to develop an awareness of the physiological system and the transferability of the geometrical, actuation, and control concepts into the engineering domain, for the purpose of building a swallowing robot. It presents a body of knowledge, beginning with the behavior and measurement of the deglutitive apparatus, followed by an investigation of deglutitive adaptation in response to rheological stimuli. The neural control strategies are then discussed before concluding with the state of, and demand for, research in the medical, food textural, and swallowing robotic fields.