Browse
Submit Data
Databases
API
Help

Dataset Information

20 Views

0 Connections

0 Citations

0 Reanalyses

0 Downloads

Omics score: 0

Millimeter-Scale Soft Continuum Robots for Large-Angle and High-Precision Manipulation by Hybrid Actuation.

ABSTRACT: Developing small-scale soft continuum robots with large-angle steering capacity and high-precision manipulation offers broad opportunities in various biomedical settings. However, existing continuum robots reach the bottleneck in actuation on account of the contradiction among small size, compliance actuation, large tender range, high precision, and small dynamic error. Herein, a 3D-printed millimeter-scale soft continuum robot with an ultrathin hollow skeleton wall (300 μm) and a large inner-to-outer ratio (0.8) is reported. After coating a thin ferromagnetic elastomer layer (≈100-150 μm), the proposed soft continuum robot equipped with hybrid actuation (tendon- and magnetic-driven mode) achieves large-angle (up to 100°) steering and high-precision (low to 2 μm for static positioning) micromanipulation simultaneously. Specifically, the robot implements an ultralow dynamic tracking error of ≈10 μm, which is ≈30-fold improved than the state of art. Combined with a microneedle/knife or nasopharyngeal swab, the robot reveals the potential for versatile biomedical applications, such as drug injection on the target tissue, diseased tissue ablation, and COVID-19 nasopharyngeal sampling. The proposed millimeter-scale soft continuum robot presents remarkable advances in large-range and high-precise actuation, which provides a new method for miniature continuum robot design and finds broad applications in biomedical engineering.

SUBMITTER: Zhang T

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7744893 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Json Xml

Similar Datasets

Evolutionary design of magnetic soft continuum robots.

Project description:Worldwide cardiovascular diseases such as stroke and heart disease are the leading cause of mortality. While guidewire/catheter-based minimally invasive surgery is used to treat a variety of cardiovascular disorders, existing passive guidewires and catheters suffer from several limitations such as low steerability and vessel access through complex geometry of vasculatures and imaging-related accumulation of radiation to both patients and operating surgeons. To address these limitations, magnetic soft continuum robots (MSCRs) in the form of magnetic field-controllable elastomeric fibers have recently demonstrated enhanced steerability under remotely applied magnetic fields. While the steerability of an MSCR largely relies on its workspace-the set of attainable points by its end effector-existing MSCRs based on embedding permanent magnets or uniformly dispersing magnetic particles in polymer matrices still cannot give optimal workspaces. The design and optimization of MSCRs have been challenging because of the lack of efficient tools. Here, we report a systematic set of model-based evolutionary design, fabrication, and experimental validation of an MSCR with a counterintuitive nonuniform distribution of magnetic particles to achieve an unprecedented workspace. The proposed MSCR design is enabled by integrating a theoretical model and the genetic algorithm. The current work not only achieves the optimal workspace for MSCRs but also provides a powerful tool for the efficient design and optimization of future magnetic soft robots and actuators.

| S-EPMC8166154 | biostudies-literature

Spinal Helical Actuation Patterns for Locomotion in Soft Robots.

Project description:Spinal-driven locomotion was first hypothesized to exist in biological systems in the 1980s. However, only recently has the concept been applied to legged robots. In implementing spinal-driven locomotion in robots to-date, researchers have focused on bending in the spine. In this article, we propose an additional mode of spinal-driven locomotion: axial torsion via helical actuation patterns. To study torsional spinal-driven locomotion, a six-legged robot with unactuated legs is used. This robot is designed to be modular to allow for changes in the physical system, such as material stiffness of the spine and legs, and has actuators that spiral around the central elastomeric spine of the robot. A model is provided to explain torsional spinal-driven locomotion. Three spinal gaits are developed to allow the robot to walk forward, through which we demonstrate that the speed of the robot can be influenced by the stiffness of the spine and legs. We also demonstrate that a single gait can be used to drive the robot forward and turn the robot left and right by adjusting the leg positions or foot friction. The results indicate that the inclusion of helical actuation patterns can assist in movement. The addition of these actuation patterns or active axial torsion to future, more complex robots with active leg control may enhance the energy efficiency of locomotion or enable fast, dynamic maneuvering.

| S-EPMC7571587 | biostudies-literature

Feasibility of Fiber Reinforcement Within Magnetically Actuated Soft Continuum Robots.

Project description:Soft continuum manipulators have the potential to replace traditional surgical catheters; offering greater dexterity with access to previously unfeasible locations for a wide range of interventions including neurological and cardiovascular. Magnetically actuated catheters are of particular interest due to their potential for miniaturization and remote control. Challenges around the operation of these catheters exist however, and one of these occurs when the angle between the actuating field and the local magnetization vector of the catheter exceeds 90°. In this arrangement, deformation generated by the resultant magnetic moment acts to increase magnetic torque, leading to potential instability. This phenomenon can cause unpredictable responses to actuation, particularly for soft, flexible materials. When coupled with the inherent challenges of sensing and localization inside living tissue, this behavior represents a barrier to progress. In this feasibility study we propose and investigate the use of helical fiber reinforcement within magnetically actuated soft continuum manipulators. Using numerical simulation to explore the design space, we optimize fiber parameters to enhance the ratio of torsional to bending stiffness. Through bespoke fabrication of an optimized helix design we validate a single, prototypical two-segment, 40 mm × 6 mm continuum manipulator demonstrating a reduction of 67% in unwanted twisting under actuation.

| S-EPMC8297468 | biostudies-literature

Towards FBG-Based Shape Sensing for Micro-scale and Meso-Scale Continuum Robots with Large Deflection.

Project description:Endovascular and endoscopic surgical procedures require micro-scale and meso-scale continuum robotic tools to navigate complex anatomical structures. In numerous studies, fiber Bragg grating (FBG) based shape sensing has been used for measuring the deflection of continuum robots on larger scales, but has proved to be a challenge for micro-scale and meso-scale robots with large deflections. In this paper, we have developed a sensor by mounting an FBG fiber within a micromachined nitinol tube whose neutral axis is shifted to one side due to the machining. This shifting of the neutral axis allows the FBG core to experience compressive strain when the tube bends. The fabrication method of the sensor has been explicitly detailed and the sensor has been tested with two tendon-driven micro-scale and meso-scale continuum robots with outer diameters of 0.41 mm and 1.93 mm respectively. The compact sensor allows repeatable and reliable estimates of the shape of both scales of robots with minimal hysteresis. We propose an analytical model to derive the curvature of the robot joints from FBG fiber strain and a static model that relates joint curvature to the tendon force. Finally, as proof-of-concept, we demonstrate the feasibility of our sensor assembly by combining tendon force feedback and the FBG strain feedback to generate reliable estimates of joint angles for the meso-scale robot.

| S-EPMC7111435 | biostudies-literature

Simulation of 3D centimeter-scale continuum tumor growth at sub-millimeter resolution via distributed computing.

Project description:Simulation of cm-scale tumor growth has generally been constrained by the computational cost to numerically solve the associated equations, with models limited to representing mm-scale or smaller tumors. While the work has proven useful to the study of small tumors and micro-metastases, a biologically-relevant simulation of cm-scale masses as would be typically detected and treated in patients has remained an elusive goal. This study presents a distributed computing (parallelized) implementation of a mixture model of tumor growth to simulate 3D cm-scale vascularized tissue at sub-mm resolution. The numerical solving scheme utilizes a two-stage parallelization framework. The solution is written for GPU computation using the CUDA framework, which handles all Multigrid-related computations. Message Passing Interface (MPI) handles distribution of information across multiple processes, freeing the program from RAM and the processing limitations found on single systems. On each system, Nvidia's CUDA library allows for fast processing of model data using GPU-bound computing on fewer systems. The results show that a combined MPI-CUDA implementation enables the continuum modeling of cm-scale tumors at reasonable computational cost. Further work to calibrate model parameters to particular tumor conditions could enable simulation of patient-specific tumors for clinical application.

| S-EPMC8277490 | biostudies-literature

Photothermally triggered actuation of hybrid materials as a new platform for in vitro cell manipulation.

Project description:Mechanical forces in the cell's natural environment have a crucial impact on growth, differentiation and behaviour. Few areas of biology can be understood without taking into account how both individual cells and cell networks sense and transduce physical stresses. However, the field is currently held back by the limitations of the available methods to apply physiologically relevant stress profiles on cells, particularly with sub-cellular resolution, in controlled in vitro experiments. Here we report a new type of active cell culture material that allows highly localized, directional and reversible deformation of the cell growth substrate, with control at scales ranging from the entire surface to the subcellular, and response times on the order of seconds. These capabilities are not matched by any other method, and this versatile material has the potential to bridge the performance gap between the existing single cell micro-manipulation and 2D cell sheet mechanical stimulation techniques.

| S-EPMC5355809 | biostudies-literature

Solar-Driven Soft Robots.

Project description:Stimuli-responsive materials have been lately employed in soft robotics enabling new classes of robots that can emulate biological systems. The untethered operation of soft materials with high power light, magnetic field, and electric field has been previously demonstrated. While electric and magnetic fields can be stimulants for untethered actuation, their rapid decay as a function of distance limits their efficacy for long-range operations. In contrast, light-in the form of sunlight or collimated from an artificial source (e.g., laser, Xenon lamps)-does not decay rapidly, making it suitable for long-range excitation of untethered soft robots. In this work, an approach to harnessing sunlight for the untethered operation of soft robots is presented. By employing a selective solar absorber film and a low-boiling point (34 °C) fluid, light-operated soft robotic grippers are demonstrated, grasping and lifting objects almost 25 times the mass of the fluid in a controllable fashion. The method addresses one of the salient challenges in the field of untethered soft robotics. It precludes the use of bulky peripheral components (e.g., compressors, valves, or pressurized gas tank) and enables the untethered long-range operation of soft robots.

| S-EPMC8061385 | biostudies-literature

Magnetically Aligned Nanorods in Alginate Capsules (MANiACs): Soft Matter Tumbling Robots for Manipulation and Drug Delivery.

Project description:Soft, untethered microrobots composed of biocompatible materials for completing micromanipulation and drug delivery tasks in lab-on-a-chip and medical scenarios are currently being developed. Alginate holds significant potential in medical microrobotics due to its biocompatibility, biodegradability, and drug encapsulation capabilities. Here, we describe the synthesis of MANiACs-Magnetically Aligned Nanorods in Alginate Capsules-for use as untethered microrobotic surface tumblers, demonstrating magnetically guided lateral tumbling via rotating magnetic fields. MANiAC translation is demonstrated on tissue surfaces as well as inclined slopes. These alginate microrobots are capable of manipulating objects over millimeter-scale distances. Finally, we demonstrate payload release capabilities of MANiACs during translational tumbling motion.

| S-EPMC6523834 | biostudies-other

Corrigendum: Photothermally triggered actuation of hybrid materials as a new platform for in vitro cell manipulation.

Project description:This corrects the article DOI: 10.1038/ncomms14700.

| S-EPMC5561540 | biostudies-other

Leveraging Geometry to Enable High-Strength Continuum Robots.

Project description:Developing high-strength continuum robots can be challenging without compromising on the overall size of the robot, the complexity of design and the range of motion. In this work, we explore how the load capacity of continuum robots can drastically be improved through a combination of backbone design and convergent actuation path routing. We propose a rhombus-patterned backbone structure composed of thin walled-plates that can be easily fabricated via 3D printing and exhibits high shear and torsional stiffness while allowing bending. We then explore the effect of combined parallel and converging actuation path routing and its influence on continuum robot strength. Experimentally determined compliance matrices are generated for straight, translation and bending configurations for analysis and discussion. A robotic actuation platform is constructed to demonstrate the applicability of these design choices.

| S-EPMC7930011 | biostudies-literature

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

OmicsDI is an Elixir interoperability service. Learn more ›

OmicsDI Databases

PRIDE
PeptideAtlas
MassIVE
JPOST Repository
Physiome Model Repository

EGA
EVA
ENA
LINCS
PAXDB
Cell Collective

MetaboLights
Metabolomics Workbench
MetabolomeExpress
GNPS
BioModels
FAIRDOMHub

ArrayExpress
dbGaP
ExpressionAtlas
GEO
NODE

Information

Databases
Help
API
Contact us
Code on GitHub
Terms of use
Submit Data