Tiny shape-shifting robots that can make precise cuts within the human body and one day replace surgeons are being developed by scientists in Edinburgh.

A team at Heriot-Watt University is starting a project to manufacture the robots, which will be as small as 1 millimetre in diameter, using shape memory alloy.

Thanks to this material, the robots will be able to change their shape in response to temperature, contracting to fit into tight spaces in the human body.

Professor Duncan Hand at Heriot-Watt University said that the project could dramatically change the way surgeons perform procedures.

“Shape memory alloys have been used to make weird and wonderful robots,” he told the Telegraph.

“At the moment in keyhole surgery, you have surgeons using some very small implements that are very difficult to use. We can replace what surgeons to do at a micro scale. You could also determine cancerous and non-cancerous tissue."