Intelligent Continuum Micromachines in Complex Confined Spaces

ABSTRACT

Confined spaces are becoming important robotic workspaces in medicine, engineering, and resource exploration, from vascular lumens and engineered microchannels to sealed equipment cavities and geological pore networks. Across these settings, a device must pass through a restricted access path, remain controllable during boundary contact and medium disturbance, and verify the local outcome despite limited visibility. Continuum micromachines address this need through slender deformable bodies that follow narrow routes and provide a continuous backbone for steering, sensing, power delivery, and local functions. This review adopts an environment‐first perspective to examine how route conditions shape device design, actuation, state awareness, task execution, and validation. It compares tethered, partially tethered, and untethered operating formats and reviews the enabling technologies required for powering, sensing, communication, and feedback‐supported operation. It also surveys emerging biomedical and engineering applications and develops a supervised‐intelligence framework for assessing operational capability. Finally, it identifies the benchmarking and translational requirements needed to advance continuum micromachines from proof‐of‐concept devices toward dependable route‐validated systems.