Maneuvering on non-Newtonian fluidic terrain: a survey of animal and bio-inspired robot locomotion techniques on soft yielding grounds.

Frictionally yielding media are a particular type of non-Newtonian fluids that significantly deform under stress and do not recover their original shape. For example, mud, snow, soil, leaf litters, or sand are such substrates because they flow when stress is applied but do not bounce back when released. Some robots have been designed to move on those substrates.

Systematic Review of Fault Tolerant Techniques in Underwater Sensor Networks.

Sensor networks provide services to a broad range of applications ranging from intelligence service surveillance to weather forecasting. While most of the sensor networks are terrestrial, Underwater Sensor Networks (USN) are an emerging area. One of the unavoidable and increasing challenges for modern USN technology is tolerating faults, i.

Man-made flows from a fish's perspective: autonomous classification of turbulent fishway flows with field data collected using an artificial lateral line.

The lateral line system provides fish with advanced mechanoreception over a wide range of flow conditions. Inspired by the abilities of their biological counterparts, artificial lateral lines have been developed and tested exclusively under laboratory settings. Motivated by the lack of flow measurements taken in the field which consider fluid-body interactions, we built a fish-shaped lateral line probe.

Collective responses of a large mackerel school depend on the size and speed of a robotic fish but not on tail motion.

So far, actuated fish models have been used to study animal interactions in small-scale controlled experiments. This study, conducted in a semi-controlled setting, investigates robot interactions with a large wild-caught marine fish school (∼3000 individuals) in their natural social environment. Two towed fish robots were used to decouple size, tail motion and speed in a series of sea-cage experiments.

Economically affordable anatomical kidney phantom with calyxes for puncture and drainage training in interventional urology and radiology.

Background: Trends in interventional radiology and urology training are orientated towards reducing costs and increasing efficiency. In order to comply with the trends, we propose training on inexpensive patient-specific kidney phantoms.

Purpose: To develop a new kidney phantom for puncture and drainage training in interventional urology and radiology, and to evaluate their anatomical correctness and suitability for training compared to the traditional way of training on home-made phantoms.

Modelling of a biologically inspired robotic fish driven by compliant parts.

Inspired by biological swimmers such as fish, a robot composed of a rigid head, a compliant body and a rigid caudal fin was built. It has the geometrical properties of a subcarangiform swimmer of the same size. The head houses a servo-motor which actuates the compliant body and the caudal fin.

A phantom pig abdomen as an alternative for testing robotic surgical systems: our experience.

The use of animals for testing and validating new medical devices and surgical techniques has raised ethical issues for a long time. Following the introduction of the Three Rs principle, significant efforts have been made to achieve a reduction in the numbers of animals used in testing. Nevertheless, the number of large animals used for testing purposes is still too high.

Self-motion effects on hydrodynamic pressure sensing: part I. forward-backward motion.

In underwater locomotion, extracting meaningful information from local flows is as desirable as it is challenging, due to complex fluid-structure interaction. Sensing and motion are tightly interconnected; hydrodynamic signals generated by the external stimuli are modified by the self-generated flow signals. Given that very little is known about self-generated signals, we used onboard pressure sensors to measure the pressure profiles over the head of a fusiform-shape craft while moving forward and backward harmonically.

Low cost anatomically realistic renal biopsy phantoms for interventional radiology trainees.

This paper describes manufacturing of economically affordable renal biopsy phantoms for radiology residents and practicing radiologists. We reconstructed a realistic 3-dimensional patient-specific kidney model from CT data, manufactured an organ mould and casted the kidney phantoms. Using gelatin gel materials with calibrated parameters allowed making phantoms with realistic mechanical, ultrasound and CT properties including various pathologies.

Hydrodynamic pressure sensing with an artificial lateral line in steady and unsteady flows.

With the overall goal being a better understanding of the sensing environment from the local perspective of a situated agent, we studied uniform flows and Kármán vortex streets in a frame of reference relevant to a fish or swimming robot. We visualized each flow regime with digital particle image velocimetry and then took local measurements using a rigid body with laterally distributed parallel pressure sensor arrays. Time and frequency domain methods were used to characterize hydrodynamically relevant scenarios in steady and unsteady flows for control applications.