Robotic surgical systems, such as the da Vinci Surgical System (Intuitive Surgical, Inc., Sunnyvale, California), have revolutionized laparoscopic surgery but are limited by large size, increased ...costs, and limitations in imaging. Miniature in vivo robots are being developed that are inserted entirely into the peritoneal cavity for laparoscopic and natural orifice transluminal endoscopic surgical (NOTES) procedures. In the future, miniature camera robots and microrobots should be able to provide a mobile viewing platform. This article discusses the current state of miniature robotics and novel robotic surgical platforms and the development of future robotic technology for general surgery and urology.
Untethered miniature robots enable targeted delivery and therapy deep inside the gastrointestinal (GI) tract in a minimally invasive manner. By combining actuation systems and imaging tools, ...significant progress has been made toward the development of functional microrobots. However, vision-based control of microrobots in the GI tract—with lots of biological barriers, intestinal peristalsis, and highly viscous mucus—remains challenging. To enhance obstacle-crossing ability and long-lifespan tracking, we report a liquid-metal soft-electronics-coupled multi-legged robot that can move and sense remotely by coupling magnetic and radio frequency effects for targeted delivery in the GI tract. Under the actuation of an external magnetic field, the robot can achieve multi-mode locomotion, such as curling and tumbling, floating up and diving, and crawling, with its position readable by using a radio-frequency identification (RFID) reader. Therefore, we anticipate that this kind of soft and flexible robot exhibits great potential for targeted delivery in the gastrointestinal tract.
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•A combination of RFID and soft robotics is proposed for tracking robot position in the gut•Surface friction of the robot during motion is reduced by the device’s multiple legs•Multi-modal navigation of the robot is performed to adapt to its microenvironment
Robots that are designed for applications in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract face several challenges, two of which are particularly critical. First, visibility limitations require robots to be tracked and controlled inside the body with real-time feedback of positional information. Second, the mucus and wrinkles in the GI tract need to be traversed to successfully navigate the gut. Here we investigated untethered miniature robots capable of performing reconfigurable deformation and on-demand locomotion. These characteristics aid traversal toward various lumens and enable targeted delivery inside the GI tract in a minimally invasive manner. We developed liquid-metal soft electronics coupled with multi-legged robots that can move and sense remotely by coupling magnetic navigation and radio-frequency tracking for targeted delivery of payloads in the GI tract. The proposed soft robots offer a new device for localized therapeutic intervention of the deep lumens inside the body with high precision.
A liquid-metal soft-electronics-coupled multi-legged robot is developed that can move, sense, and communicate remotely for targeted delivery in the gastrointestinal tract. The robot is equipped with multiple legs for reduced surface adhesion and a radio-frequency identification chip for real-time localization capabilities. It features deep tracking depth, negligible interference of bones and bubbles inside the body, and no ionizing radiation. The proposed soft robots are envisaged to be especially impactful for targeted delivery in the gastrointestinal tract.
One of the important aspects in the development of high-throughput platforms based on a fleet of scientific instruments in the form of miniature wireless robots designed for fast operations at the ...nanometer-scale, is the conception of an embedded locomotion system capable of fast displacements between two successive locations while being accurate enough to position the robot within the range of the embedded instrument, typically within a few tenths of nanometers. This paper describes not only the fundamental principles of the locomotion method and mechanisms but the main constraints, challenges, and environmental conditions that must be taken into account in the implementation of such a system. Preliminary experimental results show the validity of this approach.
Collision management strategies are an integral part of micro air vehicle (MAV) operation for flight sustainability. Among them, collision avoidance strategies require enhanced environmental and ...situational awareness for generating evasive maneuvers and collision-free trajectories. Simpler and more adaptable option is to prepare for collisions and design the physical system with predicted collision patterns in mind. In this work, a mechanically compliant quadcopter design using origami-inspired foldable robotics methods with protective shock absorbing elements has been proposed for a collision resilient quad-rotor MAV. 2D design of the foldable structure and the manufacturing process, including electronic hardware elements and software has been discussed. Our results show that in low speed collisions, the flight of the quadcopter is uninterrupted. The compliant quadcopter can continue flight after impact in near-hover conditions because of the reduction of impact forces due to the increased impact time.
Climbing up the slopes and scaling the obstacles are challenging tasks for miniature robots. By taking inspiration from nature, this paper investigates the use of a tail, like a lizard to aid the ...climbing capabilities of our miniature robot. We present the design of an active soft tail controlled by the force feedback from a 3D-printed, custom, soft force sensor. This paper also investigates the benefit of using an active tail controlled by force to climb slopes and obstacles. Increasing the slope that the miniature robot attempts to scale increases the need for the force applied by the tail to avoid the pitch-back movement of the robot. We can observe a positive correlation between the force applied by the tail and the slope of the surface. The experiments were conducted until the maximum degree of incline of slope that the robot could climb without any adhesive feet, i.e., 20 degrees. Additionally, this paper proves that the tail also improves the tail obstacle scaling capability of the robot. The maximum heights of the obstacle that the robot scales with and without the tail are 19 mm and 9 mm respectively.
We study distributed boundary coverage of known environments using a team of miniature robots. Distributed boundary coverage is an instance of the multi-robot task-allocation problem and has ...applications in inspection, cleaning, and painting among others. The proposed algorithm is robust to sensor and actuator noise, failure of individual robots, and communication loss. We use a market-based algorithm with known lower bounds on the performance to allocate the environmental objects of interest among the team of robots. The coverage time for systems subject to sensor and actuator noise is significantly shortended by on-line task re-allocation. The complexity and convergence properties of the algorithm are formally analyzed. The system performance is systematically analyzed at two different microscopic modeling levels, using agent-based, discrete-event and module-based, realistic simulators. Finally, results obtained in simulation are validated using a team of Alice miniature robots involved in a distributed inspection case study.
Due to their violent stellar winds, ionising radiation and famous deaths as supernovae, massive stars play a key role in galactic evolution. A complete understanding of these objects has been ...hindered by both their rarity and by the relatively limited volume of the Universe that is accessible with existing facilities. Addressing the first of these limiting factors, the VLT-FLAMES Tarantula Survey (VFTS) has drawn from the 30 Doradus region an unprecedented sample of over 800 O and B-type stars. The survey is beginning to uncover a wide range of global properties such as the region’s binary fraction of massive stars and their dynamics, whilst also looking in detail at some of its more fascinating objects. This thesis documents the reduction of the VFTS data set, whilst also describing the analysis for one of the serendipitous discoveries: the massive binary R139. This high-mass binary will provide an excellent future calibration point for stellar models, in part as it seems to defy certain expectations about its evolution. Outwith the VFTS, a search for binary companions around a trio of B-type supergiants is presented. These stars are surrounded by nebulae that closely resemble the triple-ring structure associated with the poorly-understood SN1987A. Do these stars share a similar evolutionary fate? While strong evidence is found for periodic pulsations in one of the stars, there appears to be no indication of a short-period binary companion suggested in the literature. Gathering observations from a wide range of environments builds a fuller picture of massive stars, but the samples remain somewhat limited. The coming generation of extremely large telescopes will open new regions for studies like the VFTS. Fully utilising these remarkable telescopes will require many new technologies, and this thesis presents one such development project. For adaptive-optics corrected, multi-object instruments it will be necessary to position small pick-off mirrors in the telescope’s focal plane to select the sub-fields on the sky. This could be most efficiently achieved if the mirrors were self-propelled, which has led to a miniature robot project called MAPS - the Micro Autonomous Positioning System. A number of robots have been built with a footprint of only 30 x 30mm. These wirelessly-controlled robots draw their power from the floor on which they operate and have shown the potential to be positioned to an accuracy of tens of microns. This thesis details much of the early design work and testing of the robots, and also the development of the camera imaging system used to determine the position of the robots. The MAPS project is ongoing and a number of the potential future tests, and avenues for new research, are discussed. This is a thesis that brings together an area of active astronomical research with cutting-edge technological development, highlighting how tomorrow’s telescopes will be an essential tool to answer some of today’s most puzzling research questions
Minijaturni roboti jedan su od pravac vrlo intenzivnog razvoja robota. Među njima leteći roboti, poput kukaca ili malih ptica, zauzimaju značajno mjesto. Namijenjeni su prije svega vojsci za ...izviđanje kao i vojno djelovanje, službama za spašavanje unesrećenih kod prirodnih katastrofa ili vojnih razaranja. Razvijaju se i kao mogući oprašivači cvjetova za slučaj da to bude potrebno. Znanstvenici očekuju njihovu upotrebu u procesu nadzora i praćenja promjena u okolišu. Ponašanje tzv. društvenih kukaca u prirodi dati će odgovore o kolektivnoj inteligenciji neophodnoj kod rada s velikim brojem minijaturnih robota pogotovo mikroskopskih i nanoveličina.
An inspection inside narrow-diameter pipes is one of the most challenging tasks in robot-assisted inspections. To navigate pipe systems, the robot must overcome difficulties, such as wet conditions, ...corners-and-curves, and pipe-diameter differences, but the smaller pipelines make such tasks more difficult. In this paper, we present a novel pipeline robot with a high environmental adaptability that can fit in pipe diameters from 12 to 25 mm. The robot consists of 2 links connected together by an active joint which allows the robot to extend and flex. Such a mechanism enables the change of its height and exerts a force against the upper walls for holding the robot inside the pipes. Two locomotion modes are presented, and the functionality of the integrated holding force mechanism is validated. Finally, the performance of the robot is confirmed throughout experiments, and the resulting robot smoothly and steadily moves through complex pipe configurations, including vertical and bent pipes.
Miniature UGVs provide a low-cost and scalable solution in the field of robotics. With a multi-agent formation, visual SLAM systems can provide a redundant and robust solution to failures caused by ...track loss or mechanical faults. In this paper, we have proposed a multi-agent approach to improve the visual SLAM performance using miniature robots. By allowing multiple miniature robots to perform the same SLAM task, we decrease the probability of SLAM failure caused in the mapping of an unknown environment. We have performed multi-agent SLAM with the help of indigenously developed miniature UGVs as small as the palm of our hand. Each of the UGVs are operating and sending data with the help of Robot Operating System (ROS) installed over a Linux based edge device. We have also demonstrated the integration of OAK-D camera, Nano Pi computer and an ATMega328 based miniature computer by using socket programming and ROS. The experimentation results show that the SLAM failure is minimized due to the redundancy demonstrated by multiple SLAM agents. A set of vision based obstacle avoidance techniques are also applied for smooth navigation of the multiple robots.
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