Development of An In Vivo Robotic Camera for Dexterous Manipulation and Clear Imaging

Minimally invasive surgeriy (MIS) techniques are becoming more popular as replacements for traditional open surgeries. These methods benefit patients with lowering blood loss and post-operative pain, reducing recovery period and hospital stay time, decreasing surgical area scarring and cosmetic issues, and lessening the treatment costs, hence greater patient satisfaction would be earned. Manipulating surgical instruments from outside of abdomen and performing surgery needs precise hand-eye coordination which is provided by insertable cameras. The traditional MIS insertable cameras suffer from port complexity and reduced manipulation dexterity, which leads to defection in Hand-eye coordination and surgical flow. Fully insertable robotic camera systems emerged as a promising solution in MIS. Implementing robotic camera systems faces multiple challenges in fixation, manipulation, orientation control, tool-tissue interaction, in vivo illumination and clear imaging.In this dissertation a novel actuation and control mechanism is developed and validated for an insertable laparoscopic camera. This design uses permanent magnets and coils as force/torque generators in an external control unit to manipulate an in vivo camera capsule. The motorless design of this capsule reduces the, wight, size and power consumption of the driven unit. In order to guarantee the smooth motion of the camera inside the abdominal cavity, an interaction force control method was proposed and validated.Optimizing the system\u27s design, through minimizing the control unit size and power consumption and extending maneuverability of insertable camera, was achieved by a novel transformable design, which uses a single permanent magnet in the control unit. The camera robot uses a permanent magnet as fixation and translation unit, and two embedded motor for tilt motion actuation, as well as illumination actuation. Transformable design provides superior imaging quality through an optimized illumination unit and a cleaning module. The illumination module uses freeform optical lenses to control light beams from the LEDs to achieve optimized illumination over surgical zone. The cleaning module prevents lens contamination through a pump actuated debris prevention system, while mechanically wipes the lens in case of contamination. The performance of transformable design and its modules have been assessed experimentally

Factories of the Future

Engineering; Industrial engineering; Production engineerin

The Design and Development of a Mobile Colonoscopy Robot

The conventional colonoscopy is a common procedure used to access the colon. Despite it being considered the Gold Standard procedure for colorectal cancer diagnosis and treatment, it has a number of major drawbacks, including high patient discomfort, infrequent but serious complications and high skill required to perform the procedure. There are a number of potential alternatives to the conventional colonoscopy, from augmenting the colonoscope to using Computed Tomography Colonography (CTC) - a completely non-invasive method. However, a truly effective, all-round alternative has yet to be found. This thesis explores the design and development of a novel solution: a fully mobile colonoscopy robot called “RollerBall”. Unlike current passive diagnostic capsules, such as PillCam, this device uses wheels at the end of adjustable arms to provide locomotion through the colon, while providing a stable platform for the use of diagnostic and therapeutic tools. The work begins by reviewing relevant literature to better understand the problem and potential solutions. RollerBall is then introduced and its design described in detail. A robust prototype was then successfully fabricated using a 3D printing technique and its performance assessed in a series of benchtop experiments. These showed that the mechanisms functioned as intended and encouraged the further development of the concept. Next, the fundamental requirement of gaining traction on the colon was shown to be possible using hexagonal shaped, macro-scale tread patterns. A friction coefficient ranging between 0.29 and 0.55 was achieved with little trauma to the tissue substrate. The electronics hardware and control were then developed and evaluated in a series of tests in silicone tubes. An open-loop strategy was first used to establish the control algorithm to map the user inputs to motor outputs (wheel speeds). These tests showed the efficacy of the locomotion technique and the control algorithm used, but they highlighted the need for autonomy. To address this, feedback was included to automate the adjusting of the arm angle and amount of force applied by the device; a forward facing camera was also used to automate the orientation control by tracking a user-defined target. Force and orientation control were then combined to show that semi-autonomous control was possible and as a result, it was concluded that clinical use may be feasible in future developments

Proceedings, MSVSCC 2013

Proceedings of the 7th Annual Modeling, Simulation & Visualization Student Capstone Conference held on April 11, 2013 at VMASC in Suffolk, Virginia

Biomedical Engineering

Biomedical engineering is currently relatively wide scientific area which has been constantly bringing innovations with an objective to support and improve all areas of medicine such as therapy, diagnostics and rehabilitation. It holds a strong position also in natural and biological sciences. In the terms of application, biomedical engineering is present at almost all technical universities where some of them are targeted for the research and development in this area. The presented book brings chosen outputs and results of research and development tasks, often supported by important world or European framework programs or grant agencies. The knowledge and findings from the area of biomaterials, bioelectronics, bioinformatics, biomedical devices and tools or computer support in the processes of diagnostics and therapy are defined in a way that they bring both basic information to a reader and also specific outputs with a possible further use in research and development

Friction Force Microscopy of Deep Drawing Made Surfaces

Aim of this paper is to contribute to micro-tribology understanding and friction in micro-scale interpretation in case of metal beverage production, particularly the deep drawing process of cans. In order to bridging the gap between engineering and trial-and-error principles, an experimental AFM-based micro-tribological approach is adopted. For that purpose, the can’s surfaces are imaged with atomic force microscopy (AFM) and the frictional force signal is measured with frictional force microscopy (FFM). In both techniques, the sample surface is scanned with a stylus attached to a cantilever. Vertical motion of the cantilever is recorded in AFM and horizontal motion is recorded in FFM. The presented work evaluates friction over a micro-scale on various samples gathered from cylindrical, bottom and round parts of cans, made of same the material but with different deep drawing process parameters. The main idea is to link the experimental observation with the manufacturing process. Results presented here can advance the knowledge in order to comprehend the tribological phenomena at the contact scales, too small for conventional tribology

Towards a Conceptual Design of an Intelligent Material Transport Based on Machine Learning and Axiomatic Design Theory

Reliable and efficient material transport is one of the basic requirements that affect productivity in sheet metal industry. This paper presents a methodology for conceptual design of intelligent material transport using mobile robot, based on axiomatic design theory, graph theory and artificial intelligence. Developed control algorithm was implemented and tested on the mobile robot system Khepera II within the laboratory model of manufacturing environment. Matlab© software package was used for manufacturing process simulation, implementation of search algorithms and neural network training. Experimental results clearly show that intelligent mobile robot can learn and predict optimal material transport flows thanks to the use of artificial neural networks. Achieved positioning error of mobile robot indicates that conceptual design approach can be used for material transport and handling tasks in intelligent manufacturing systems

Towards a Conceptual Design of an Intelligent Material Transport Based on Machine Learning and Axiomatic Design Theory

Reliable and efficient material transport is one of the basic requirements that affect productivity in sheet metal industry. This paper presents a methodology for conceptual design of intelligent material transport using mobile robot, based on axiomatic design theory, graph theory and artificial intelligence. Developed control algorithm was implemented and tested on the mobile robot system Khepera II within the laboratory model of manufacturing environment. Matlab© software package was used for manufacturing process simulation, implementation of search algorithms and neural network training. Experimental results clearly show that intelligent mobile robot can learn and predict optimal material transport flows thanks to the use of artificial neural networks. Achieved positioning error of mobile robot indicates that conceptual design approach can be used for material transport and handling tasks in intelligent manufacturing systems