A Tiny Robot That Fits in Your Mouth Could Make Crown Appointments Faster

Getting a dental crown typically means at least two visits: one to shape the tooth and fit a temporary, and another to place the permanent restoration. Researchers at the University of Basel's Department of Biomedical Engineering have developed a prototype robot that could compress that process into a single appointment.

The device is designed to automatically prepare a tooth for a crown and could help reduce the total number of appointments a patient needs.

The robot — called the MIR, or Miniature Intraoral Robot — is a compact device designed to scan and prepare a tooth during a single appointment; roughly the size of a wine cork, it fits inside the patient's mouth and moves with the patient if they shift position during treatment.

The device carries out precise tooth preparation according to a digital plan, and after a diagnostic scan, the clinician can plan exactly how the robot should remove tooth material and order the permanent crown immediately.

The scan also produces a custom-fitted dental splint to which the robot attaches, so if the patient moves their head, the device moves along with them.

The robot prepares a tooth in two steps: first, a wide drill reduces the tooth surface from above; then a longer, thinner drill works on the sides. Notably, the robot achieved this without any built-in position sensors, and in bench tests the positional error was less than 0.2 millimeters — a figure the team expects to improve once sensors are added.

So far, MIR has only been tested in the lab, not in patients — the team evaluated it through positioning-accuracy experiments and grinding tests on model materials.

The research was published in IEEE Transactions on Medical Robotics and Bionics. Clinical use remains years away, but the early results suggest that robotic assistance could eventually make a common and often multi-visit procedure meaningfully simpler for patients.