Flexible Actuator Based on Conductive PAM Hydrogel Electrodes with Enhanced Water Retention Capacity and Conductivity.

Conductive polyacrylamide (PAM) hydrogels with salts that act as electrolytes have been used as transparent electrodes with high elasticity in flexible electronic devices. Different types and contents of raw materials will affect their performance in all aspects. We tried to introduce highly hydratable salts into PAM hydrogels to improve their water retention capacity.

Bio-Inspired New Hydraulic Actuator Imitating the Human Muscles for Mobile Robots.

Limited load capacity is the bottleneck for the practical application of mobile multi-joint legged robots. And improving the efficiency of the drive system is a key factor in improving the load capacity. To improve the efficiency of mobile robots, in this paper, a new kind of actuator that imitates the driving mechanism of human muscles is innovatively designed and validated through experiments.

Biocompatible Conductive Hydrogels: Applications in the Field of Biomedicine.

The impact of COVID-19 has rendered medical technology an important factor to maintain social stability and economic increase, where biomedicine has experienced rapid development and played a crucial part in fighting off the pandemic. Conductive hydrogels (CHs) are three-dimensional (3D) structured gels with excellent electrical conductivity and biocompatibility, which are very suitable for biomedical applications. CHs can mimic innate tissue's physical, chemical, and biological properties, which allows them to provide environmental conditions and structural stability for cell growth and serve as efficient delivery substrates for bioactive molecules.

Gyroscope Sensor Based Finger Axes of Rotation Identification Using Screw Displacement.

This paper presents a low-cost, efficient, and portable method for identifying axes of rotation of the proximal interphalangeal and distal interphalangeal joints in an index finger. The approach is associated with the screw displacement representation of rigid body motion. Using the matrix exponential method, a detailed derivation of general spatial displacement of a rigid body in the form of screw displacement including the Rodrigues' formulae for rotation is presented.

Vibration and damping characteristics of 3D printed Kagome lattice with viscoelastic material filling.

Constrained layer dampers (CLD) are in widespread use for passive vibration damping, in applications including aerospace structures. However, the introducing of the damping layer can reduce the stiffness of the sandwich structures. A viscoelastic material filling (VMF) is chosen to balance structural and vibrational performance of lattice truss in this work.

Thickness optimization of auricular silicone scaffold based on finite element analysis.

An optimized thickness of a transplantable auricular silicone scaffold was researched. The original image data were acquired from CT scans, and reverse modeling technology was used to build a digital 3D model of an auricle. The transplant process was simulated in ANSYS Workbench by finite element analysis (FEA), solid scaffolds were manufactured based on the FEA results, and the transplantable artificial auricle was finally obtained with an optimized thickness, as well as sufficient intensity and hardness.

Evaluation of a novel flexible snake robot for endoluminal surgery.

Background: Endoluminal therapeutic procedures such as endoscopic submucosal dissection are increasingly attractive given the shift in surgical paradigm towards minimally invasive surgery. This novel three-channel articulated robot was developed to overcome the limitations of the flexible endoscope which poses a number of challenges to endoluminal surgery. The device enables enhanced movement in a restricted workspace, with improved range of motion and with the accuracy required for endoluminal surgery.

A novel flexible hyper-redundant surgical robot: prototype evaluation using a single incision flexible access pelvic application as a clinical exemplar.

Introduction: The flexible endoscope is increasingly being considered as a surgical tool to enable innovative natural orifice or flexible access techniques. These experiences have exposed unique advantages but also significant challenges. Major current technical drawbacks in this setting relate to uncontrolled flexibility, inaccurate sustained target localization, unreliable navigation and overall platform instability.

Vehicle unpaved road response spectrum acquisition based on accelerometer and GPS data.

This paper describes a response acquisition system composed of some spindle accelerometers and a time synchronized on-board GPS receiver developed in order to collect the dynamic response of vehicle riding on an unpaved road. A method of time-space conversion for calculating the response spectrum is proposed to eliminate the adverse effect of time-varying speed, based on the transform from the equitime sampled spindle acceleration responses to equidistance sampling. By using two groups of independent distance histories acquired from GPS, a method called long-range error correction is proposed to improve the accuracy of the vehicle's distance information, which is critical for the time-space conversion.

Design of a Multitasking Robotic Platform with Flexible Arms and Articulated Head for Minimally Invasive Surgery.

This paper describes a multitasking robotic platform for Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS). The device is designed to be introduced through a standard trocar port. Once the device is inserted to the desired surgical site, it can be reconfigured by lifting an articulated section, and protruding two tendon driven flexible arms.

Robot-assisted transvaginal peritoneoscopy using confocal endomicroscopy: a feasibility study in a porcine model.

Background: Optical biopsy methods such as probe-based confocal laser endomicroscopy (pCLE) provide useful intraoperative real-time information, especially during minimally invasive surgery with flexible endoscopic or robotic platforms. By translating the probe at constant pressure across the target tissue, undistorted "mosaics" can be produced. However, this poses ergonomic challenges with a conventional flexible endoscope.

A hand-held instrument to maintain steady tissue contact during probe-based confocal laser endomicroscopy.

Probe-based confocal laser endomicroscopy (pCLE) provides high-resolution in vivo imaging for intraoperative tissue characterization. Maintaining a desired contact force between target tissue and the pCLE probe is important for image consistency, allowing large area surveillance to be performed. A hand-held instrument that can provide a predetermined contact force to obtain consistent images has been developed.

Force adaptive multi-spectral imaging with an articulated robotic endoscope.

Recent developments in optical spectroscopic techniques have permitted in vivo, in situ cellular and molecular sensing and imaging to allow for real-time tissue characterization, functional assessment, and intraoperative guidance. The small area sensed by these probes, however, presents unique challenges when attempting to obtain useful tissue information in-vivo due to the need to maintain constant distance or contact with the target, and tissue deformation. In practice, the effective area can be increased by translating the tip of the probe over the tissue surface and generating functional maps of the underlying tissue response.