Autonomous space processor for orbital debris

Advanced designs are being continued to develop the ultimate goal of a GETAWAY special to demonstrate economical removal of orbital debris utilizing local resources in orbit. The fundamental technical feasibility was demonstrated in 1988 through theoretical calculations, quantitative computer animation, a solar focal point cutter, a robotic arm design and a subcase model. Last year improvements were made to the solar cutter and the robotic arm. Also performed last year was a mission analysis which showed the feasibility of retrieve at least four large (greater than 1500 kg) pieces of debris. Advances made during this reporting period are the incorporation of digital control with the existing placement arm, the development of a new robotic manipulator arm, and the study of debris spin attenuation. These advances are discussed

Vitreo-retinal eye surgery robot : sustainable precision

Vitreo-retinal eye surgery encompasses the surgical procedures performed on the vitreous humor and the retina. A procedure typically consists of the removal of the vitreous humor, the peeling of a membrane and/or the repair of a retinal detachment. Vitreo-retinal surgery is performed minimal invasively. Small needle shaped instruments are inserted into the eye. Instruments are manipulated by hand in four degrees of freedom about the insertion point. Two rotations move the instrument tip laterally, in addition to a translation in axial instrument direction and a rotation about its longitudinal axis. The manipulation of the instrument tip, e.g. a gripping motion can be considered as a fifth degree of freedom. While performing vitreo-retinal surgery manually, the surgeon faces various challenges. Typically, delicate micrometer range thick tissue is operated, for which steady hand movements and high accuracy instrument manipulation are required. Lateral instrument movements are inverted by the pivoting insertion point and scaled depending on the instrument insertion depth. A maximum of two instruments can be used simultaneously. There is nearly no perception of surgical forces, since most forces are below the human detection limit. Therefore, the surgeon relies only on visual feedback, obtained via a microscope or endoscope. Both vision systems force the surgeon to work in a static and non ergonomic body posture. Although the surgeon’s proficiency improves throughout his career, hand tremor will become a problem at higher age. Robotically assisted surgery with a master-slave system can assist the surgeon in these challenges. The slave system performs the actual surgery, by means of instrument manipulators which handle the instruments. The surgeon remains in control of the instruments by operating haptic interfaces via a master. Using electronic hardware and control software, the master and slave are connected. Amongst others, advantages as tremor filtering, up-scaled force feedback, down-scaled motions and stabilized instrument positioning will enhance dexterity on surgical tasks. Furthermore, providing the surgeon an ergonomic body posture will prolong the surgeon’s career. This thesis focuses on the design and realization of a high precision slave system for eye surgery. The master-slave system uses a table mounted design, where the system is compact, lightweight, easy to setup and equipped to perform a complete intervention. The slave system consists of two main parts: the instrument manipulators and their passive support system. Requirements are derived from manual eye surgery, conversations with medical specialists and analysis of the human anatomy and vitreo-retinal interventions. The passive support system provides a stiff connection between the instrument manipulator, patient and surgical table. Given the human anatomical diversity, presurgical adjustments can be made to allow the instrument manipulators to be positioned over each eye. Most of the support system is integrated within the patient’s headrest. On either the left or right side, two exchangeable manipulator-support arms can be installed onto the support system, depending on the eye being operated upon. The compact, lightweight and easy to install design, allows for a short setup time and quick removal in case of a complication. The slave system’s surgical reach is optimized to emulate manually performed surgery. For bimanual instrument operation, two instrument manipulators are used. Additional instrument manipulators can be used for non-active tools e.g. an illumination probe or an endoscope. An instrument manipulator allows the same degrees of freedom and a similar reach as manually performed surgery. Instrument forces are measured to supply force feedback to the surgeon via haptic interfaces. The instrument manipulator is designed for high stiffness, is play free and has low friction to allow tissue manipulation with high accuracy. Each instrument manipulator is equipped with an on board instrument change system, by which instruments can be changed in a fast and secure way. A compact design near the instrument allows easy access to the surgical area, leaving room for the microscope and peripheral equipment. The acceptance of a surgical robot for eye surgery mostly relies on equipment safety and reliability. The design of the slave system features various safety measures, e.g. a quick release mechanism for the instrument manipulator and additional locks on the pre-surgical adjustment fixation clamp. Additional safety measures are proposed, like a hard cover over the instrument manipulator and redundant control loops in the controlling FPGA. A method to fixate the patient’s head to the headrest by use of a custom shaped polymer mask is proposed. Two instrument manipulators and their passive support system have been realized so far, and the first experimental results confirm the designed low actuation torque and high precision performance

Index to 1986 NASA Tech Briefs, volume 11, numbers 1-4

Short announcements of new technology derived from the R&D activities of NASA are presented. These briefs emphasize information considered likely to be transferrable across industrial, regional, or disciplinary lines and are issued to encourage commercial application. This index for 1986 Tech Briefs contains abstracts and four indexes: subject, personal author, originating center, and Tech Brief Number. The following areas are covered: electronic components and circuits, electronic systems, physical sciences, materials, life sciences, mechanics, machinery, fabrication technology, and mathematics and information sciences

Robot Manipulators

Robot manipulators are developing more in the direction of industrial robots than of human workers. Recently, the applications of robot manipulators are spreading their focus, for example Da Vinci as a medical robot, ASIMO as a humanoid robot and so on. There are many research topics within the field of robot manipulators, e.g. motion planning, cooperation with a human, and fusion with external sensors like vision, haptic and force, etc. Moreover, these include both technical problems in the industry and theoretical problems in the academic fields. This book is a collection of papers presenting the latest research issues from around the world

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

Conference on Intelligent Robotics in Field, Factory, Service, and Space (CIRFFSS 1994), volume 1

The AIAA/NASA Conference on Intelligent Robotics in Field, Factory, Service, and Space (CIRFFSS '94) was originally proposed because of the strong belief that America's problems of global economic competitiveness and job creation and preservation can partly be solved by the use of intelligent robotics, which are also required for human space exploration missions. Individual sessions addressed nuclear industry, agile manufacturing, security/building monitoring, on-orbit applications, vision and sensing technologies, situated control and low-level control, robotic systems architecture, environmental restoration and waste management, robotic remanufacturing, and healthcare applications

Ground Robotic Hand Applications for the Space Program study (GRASP)

This document reports on a NASA-STDP effort to address research interests of the NASA Kennedy Space Center (KSC) through a study entitled, Ground Robotic-Hand Applications for the Space Program (GRASP). The primary objective of the GRASP study was to identify beneficial applications of specialized end-effectors and robotic hand devices for automating any ground operations which are performed at the Kennedy Space Center. Thus, operations for expendable vehicles, the Space Shuttle and its components, and all payloads were included in the study. Typical benefits of automating operations, or augmenting human operators performing physical tasks, include: reduced costs; enhanced safety and reliability; and reduced processing turnaround time

User needs, benefits and integration of robotic systems in a space station laboratory

The methodology, results and conclusions of the User Needs, Benefits, and Integration Study (UNBIS) of Robotic Systems in the Space Station Microgravity and Materials Processing Facility are summarized. Study goals include the determination of user requirements for robotics within the Space Station, United States Laboratory. Three experiments were selected to determine user needs and to allow detailed investigation of microgravity requirements. A NASTRAN analysis of Space Station response to robotic disturbances, and acceleration measurement of a standard industrial robot (Intelledex Model 660) resulted in selection of two ranges of low gravity manipulation: Level 1 (10-3 to 10-5 G at greater than 1 Hz.) and Level 2 (less than = 10-6 G at 0.1 Hz). This included an evaluation of microstepping methods for controlling stepper motors and concluded that an industrial robot actuator can perform milli-G motion without modification. Relative merits of end-effectors and manipulators were studied in order to determine their ability to perform a range of tasks related to the three low gravity experiments. An Effectivity Rating was established for evaluating these robotic system capabilities. Preliminary interface requirements were determined such that definition of requirements for an orbital flight demonstration experiment may be established

Flexible robotic device for spinal surgery

Surgical robots have proliferated in recent years, with well-established benefits including: reduced patient trauma, shortened hospitalisation, and improved diagnostic accuracy and therapeutic outcome. Despite these benefits, many challenges in their development remain, including improved instrument control and ergonomics caused by rigid instrumentation and its associated fulcrum effect. Consequently, it is still extremely challenging to utilise such devices in cases that involve complex anatomical pathways such as the spinal column. The focus of this thesis is the development of a flexible robotic surgical cutting device capable of manoeuvring around the spinal column. The target application of the flexible surgical tool is the removal of cancerous tumours surrounding the spinal column, which cannot be excised completely using the straight surgical tools in use today; anterior and posterior sections of the spine must be accessible for complete tissue removal. A parallel robot platform with six degrees of freedom (6 DoFs) has been designed and fabricated to direct a flexible cutting tool to produce the necessary range of movements to reach anterior and posterior sections of the spinal column. A flexible water jet cutting system and a flexible mechanical drill, which may be assembled interchangeably with the flexible probe, have been developed and successfully tested experimentally. A model predicting the depth of cut by the water jet was developed and experimentally validated. A flexion probe that is able to guide the surgical cutting device around the spinal column has been fabricated and tested with human lumber model. Modelling and simulations show the capacity for the flexible surgical system to enable entering the posterior side of the human lumber model and bend around the vertebral body to reach the anterior side of the spinal column. A computer simulation with a full Graphical User Interface (GUI) was created and used to validate the system of inverse kinematic equations for the robot platform. The constraint controller and the inverse kinematics relations are both incorporated into the overall positional control structure of the robot, and have successfully established a haptic feedback controller for the 6 DoFs surgical probe, and effectively tested in vitro on spinal mock surgery. The flexible surgical system approached the surgery from the posterior side of the human lumber model and bend around the vertebral body to reach the anterior side of the spinal column. The flexible surgical robot removed 82% of mock cancerous tissue compared to 16% of tissue removed by the rigid tool.Open Acces