An Automatic Implementation of Oropharyngeal Swab Sampling for Diagnosing Respiratory Infectious Diseases via Soft Robotic End-Effectors

The most widely adopted method for diagnosing respiratory infectious diseases is to conduct polymerase chain reaction(PCR)assays on patients’respiratory specimens,which are collected through either nasal or oropharyngeal swabs.The manual swab sampling process poses a high risk to the examiner and may cause false-negative results owing to improper sampling.In this paper,we propose a pneumatically actuated soft end-effector specifically designed to achieve all of the tasks involved in swab sampling.The soft end-effector utilizes circumferential instability to ensure grasping stability,and exhibits several key properties,including high load-to-weight ratio,error tolerance,and variable swab-tip stiffness,leading to successful automatic robotic oropharyngeal swab sampling,from loosening and tightening the transport medium tube cap,holding the swab,and conducting sampling,to snapping off the swab tail and sterilizing itself.Using an industrial collaborative robotic arm,we integrated the soft end-effector,force sensor,camera,lights,and remote-control stick,and developed a robotic oropharyngeal swab sampling system.Using this swab sampling system,we conducted oropharyngeal swab-sampling tests on 20 volunteers.Our Digital PCR assay results(RNase P RNA gene absolute copy numbers for the samples)revealed that our system successfully collected sufficient numbers of cells from the pharyngeal wall for respiratory disease diagnosis.In summary,we have developed a pharyngeal swab-sampling system based on an“enveloping”soft actuator,studied the sampling process,and imple-mented whole-process robotic oropharyngeal swab-sampling.

Intelligent Autonomous-Robot Control for Medical Applications

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that there is a lack of healthcare facilities to cope with a pandemic.This has also underscored the immediate need to rapidly develop hospitals capable of dealing with infectious patients and to rapidly change in supply lines to manufacture the prescription goods(including medicines)that is needed to prevent infection and treatment for infected patients.The COVID-19 has shown the utility of intelligent autonomous robots that assist human efforts to combat a pandemic.The artificial intelligence based on neural networks and deep learning can help to fight COVID-19 in many ways,particularly in the control of autonomous medic robots.Health officials aim to curb the spread of COVID-19 among medical,nursing staff and patients by using intelligent robots.We propose an advanced controller for a service robot to be used in hospitals.This type of robot is deployed to deliver food and dispense medications to individual patients.An autonomous line-follower robot that can sense and follow a line drawn on the floor and drive through the rooms of patients with control of its direction.These criteria were met by using two controllers simultaneously:a deep neural network controller to predict the trajectory of movement and a proportional-integral-derivative(PID)controller for automatic steering and speed control.

Robotic Intra-Operative Ultrasound:Virtual Environments and Parallel Systems

Robotic intra-operative ultrasound has the potential to improve the conventional practice of diagnosis and procedure guidance that are currently performed manually.Working towards automatic or semi-automatic ultrasound,being able to define ultrasound views and the corresponding probe poses via intelligent approaches become crucial.Based on the concept of parallel system which incorporates the ingredients of artificial systems,computational experiments,and parallel execution,this paper utilized a recent developed robotic trans-esophageal ultrasound system as the study object to explore the method for developing the corresponding virtual environments and present the potential applications of such systems.The proposed virtual system includes the use of 3 D slicer as the main workspace and graphic user interface(GUI),Matlab engine to provide robotic control algorithms and customized functions,and PLUS(Public software Library for Ultra Sound imaging research)toolkit to generate simulated ultrasound images.Detailed implementation methods were presented and the proposed features of the system were explained.Based on this virtual system,example uses and case studies were presented to demonstrate its capabilities when used together with the physical TEE robot.This includes standard view definition and customized view optimization for pre-planning and navigation,as well as robotic control algorithm evaluations to facilitate real-time automatic probe pose adjustments.To conclude,the proposed virtual system would be a powerful tool to facilitate the further developments and clinical uses of the robotic intra-operative ultrasound systems.

Magnetic Actuation Systems and Magnetic Robots for Gastrointestinal Examination and Treatment

Magnetic actuation technology(MAT)provides novel diagnostic tools for the early screening and treatment of digestive cancers,which have high morbidity and mortality rates worldwide.The application of magnetic actuation systems and magnetic robots in gastrointestinal(GI)diagnosis and treatment to provide a comprehensive reference manual for scholars in the field of MAT research are reviewed.It describes the basic principles of magnetic actuation and magnetic field safety,introduces the design,manufacturing,control,and performance parameters of magnetic actuation systems,as well as the applicability and limitations of each system for different parts of the GI tract.It analyzes the characteristics and advantages of different types and functions of magnetic robots,summarizes the challenges faced by MAT in clinical applications,and provides an outlook on the future prospects of the field.

Workspace and Accuracy Analysis on a Novel 6‑UCU Bone‑attached Parallel Manipulator

With the increasingly more extensive application of the medical surgical robot in the clinic,higher requirements have been put forward for medical robots.The bone-attached robot,a popular orthopedic robot in recent years,has a tendency of miniaturization and refinement.Thus,a bone-attached parallel manipulator(PM)based on 6-UCU(universalcylindrical-universal)configuration is proposed,which is characterized by small volume,compact structure,high precision and six-dimensional force feedback.To optimize the structure and make it more compact,the workspace of the 6-UCU PM is analyzed based on the analysis of three kinds of constraint,and workspace model is established through spherical coordinate search method.This study also analyzes the influence of structural parameters on workspace,which may contribute to improving the efficiency of design and ensuring small-sized robots possess relatively large workspace.Moreover,to improve the motion accuracy,an error modeling method is developed based on the structure of 6-UCU PMs.According to this established error model,the output pose error curves are drawn using MATLAB software when the structure parameters change,and the influence of the structure and pose parameters change on the output pose error of PMs is analyzed.The proposed research provides the instruction to design and analysis of small PMs such as bone-attached robots.

Development of a nurse robot serving in infectious disease isolation wards

A prototype of nurse robot system serving in infectious disease wards is developed by analyzing the systems requirement. Firstly, the type synthesis and dimension synthesis for optimizing the workspace are presented. Secondly, the tele-control system based on velocity control mode is introduced, and tele-control program is written. Finally, the imitation of position workspace and experiment of transforming objects from buffer area to isolation area are carried out.

ACTIVE ROBOTIC ENDOSCOPE FOR MINIMALLY INVASIVE SURGERY

A robotic endoscope is mainly composed of a tactile array sensor, soft mobilemechanism for earthworm locomotion and turning mechanism based on shape memory effect. The tactilearray sensor can provide the information about magnitude and orientation of interacting forcesbetween the robotic endoscope and the wall of gastrointestinal tracts. The soft mobile mechanismcontacts gastrointestinal tracts with air-in inflatable balloons, so it has better soft andnon-invasive properties. The turning mechanism can be actively bent by shape memory alloy componentsand conform to the complex shape of gastrointestinal tracts. The working principle of roboticendoscope is dealt with.

An effective algorithm for needle tip displacement compensation in robot-assisted percutaneous surgery

This paper presents an automatic compensation algorithm for needle tip displacement in order to keep the needle tip always fixed at the skin entry point in the process of needle orientation in robot-assisted percutaneous surgery. The algorithm, based on a two-degree-of-freedom （2-DOF） robot wrist （not the mechanically constrained remote center of motion （RCM） mechanism） and a 3-DOF robot ann, firstly calculates the needle tip displacement caused by rotational motion of robot wrist in the arm coordinate frame using the robotic forward kinematics, and then inversely compensates for the needle tip displace- ment by real-time Cartesian motion of robot arm. The algorithm achieves the function of the RCM and eliminates many mechanical and virtual constraints caused by the RCM mechanism. Experimental result demonstrates that the needle tip displacement is within 1 inm in the process of needle orientation.

A High-Precision US-Guided Robot-Assisted HIFU Treatment System for Breast Cancer

Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in women. A strong treatment candidate is high- intensity focused ultrasound （HIFU）, a non-invasive therapeutic method that has already demonstrated its promise. To improve the precision and lower the cost of HIFU treatment, our group has developed an ultrasound （US）-guided, five-degree-of-freedom （DOF）, robot-assisted HIFU system. We constructed a fully functional prototype enabling easy three-dimensional （3D） US image reconstruction, target seg-mentation, treatment path generation, and automatic HIFU irradiation. The position was calibrated using a wire phantom and the coagulated area was assessed on heterogeneous tissue phantoms. Under the US guidance, the centroids of the HIFU-ahlated area deviated by less than 2 mm from the planned treatment region. The overshoot around the planned region was well below the tolerance of clinical usage. Our system is considered to he sufficiently accurate for breast cancer treatment.

A Novel Robotic Control System Mimics Doctor’s Operation to Assist Percutaneous Coronary Intervention

Objectives:The use of current robotic systems to assist in percutaneous coronary intervention(PCI)fundamentally differs from performing conventional PCI.To overcome this problem,we developed a novel master-slave robotic control system to assist in PCI,and evaluated its safety and feasibility in the delivery and manipulation of coronary guidewires in vitro and in vivo.Methods:The novel robotic assist PCI system is composed of three parts:1)a master actuator,which imitates the traditional torque used by surgeons in conventional PCI,2)a slave actuator,including a guidewire delivery system and force monitoring equipment,and 3)a local area network based communication system.Results:The experiment was performed in six pigs.Both robotic and manual control completed the operation with no device-or procedure-associated complications.An experienced interventional cardiologist who was afirst-time user of the novel robotic PCI system was able to advance the guidewire into a distal branch of a coronary artery within a similar time to that required with the manual procedure.Conclusion:This early in vivo experiment with the novel robotic assisted PCI control system demonstrated that its feasibility,safety,and procedural effectiveness are comparable to those of manual operation.The novel robotic-assisted PCI control system required significantly less time to learn than other currently available systems.

Main Stages of Evolution from Mechanical Automatic Systems to Humanoid Robot

Since ancient times, man has been concerned to create an artificial structure similar to itself. This concern has remained constant attention and creative thinkers most profound since antiquity until today, it is of greatest interest. This article aims to highlight the most significant moments of the evolution from mechanical creatures mythical or real, from antiquity to the present humanoid robots. There are thus shown the most significant variants humanoid imagined or realized since Talos, described in Greek mythology, continuing with mechanical machines during late Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire and then the Renaissance of the post-renaissance, then they are shown the main achievements of the industrialization period from the nineteenth to the early part of the twentieth century, then to the most important made in the last decades of the twentieth century and early twenty-first century. The work is important to stimulate concerns academic theorists and practice but also in the industrial practice specializing in robotics and more generally in mechatronics. It also opens the prospect of defining the concept of an artificial humanoid useful both for human prosthesis with certain disabilities, and a humanoid robot performance.

Humans and Robots: A Mutually Inclusive Relationship in a Contagious World

The coronavirus global pandemic has spread faster and more severely than experts had anticipated.While this has presented itself as a great challenge,researchers worldwide have shown ingenuity and dexterity in adapting technology and devising new strategies to combat this pandemic.However,implementing these strategies alone impedes the nature of everyone′s daily life.Hence,an intersection between these strategies and the technological advantages of robotics,artificial intelligence,and autonomous systems is essential for near-to-normal operation.In this review paper,different applications of robotic systems,various aspects of modern technologies,including medical imaging,telemedicine,and supply chains,have been covered with respect to the COVID-19 pandemic.Furthermore,concerns over user′s data privacy,job losses,and legal aspects of the implementation of robotics are also been discussed.

State of the art in movement around a remote point:a review of remote center of motion in robotics

The concept of remote center of motion(RCM)is pivotal in a myriad of robotic applications,encompa-ssing areas such as medical robotics,orientation devices,and exoskeletal systems.The efficacy of RCM technology is a determining factor in the success of these robotic domains.This paper offers an exhaustive review of RCM technologies,elaborating on their various methodologies and practical implementations.It delves into the unique characteristics of RCM across different degrees of freedom(DOFs),aiming to distill their fundamental principles.In addition,this paper categorizes RCM approaches into two primary classifications:design based and control based.These are further organized according to their respective DOFs,providing a concise summary of their core methodologies.Building upon the understanding of RCM’s versatile capabilities,this paper then transitions to an in-depth exploration of its applications across diverse robotic fields.Concluding this review,we critically analyze the existing research challenges and issues that are inherently present in both RCM methodologies and their applications.This discussion is intended to serve as a guiding framework for future research endeavors and practical deployments in related areas.

State-of-the-art of intelligent minimally invasive surgical robots Masakatsu

A number of developed countries are rapidly turning into super-aged societies.Consequently,the demand for reduced surgical invasiveness and enhanced efficiency in the medical field has increased due to the need to reduce the physical burden on older patients and shorten their recovery period.Intelligent surgical robot systems offer high precision,high safety,and reduced invasiveness.This paper presents a review of current intelligent surgical robot systems.The history of robots and three types of intelligent surgical robots are discussed.The problems with current surgical robot systems are then analyzed.Several aspects that should be considered in designing new surgical systems are discussed in detail.The paper ends with a summary of the work and a discussion of future prospects for surgical robot development.

Application of artificial intelligence in surgery

Artificial intelligence(AI)is gradually changing the practice of surgery with technological advancements in imaging,navigation,and robotic intervention.In this article,we review the recent successful and influential applications of AI in surgery from preoperative planning and intraoperative guidance to its integration into surgical robots.We conclude this review by summarizing the current state,emerging trends,and major challenges in the future development of AI in surgery.