A UHF RFID positioning system for use in warehouse navigation by employees with cognitive disability.

Unemployment among the almost 5 million working-age adults with cognitive disabilities in the USA is a costly problem in both tax dollars and quality of life. Job coaching is an effective tool to overcome this, but the cost of job coaching services sums with every new employee or change of employment roles. There is a need for a cost-effective, automated alternative to job coaching that incurs a one-time cost and can be reused for multiple employees or roles. An effective automated job coach must be aware of its location and the location of destinations within the job site. This project presents a design and prototype of a cart-mounted indoor positioning and navigation system with necessary original software using Ultra High Frequency Radio Frequency Identification (UHF RFID). The system presented in this project for use within a warehouse setting is one component of an automated job coach to assist in the job of order filler. The system demonstrated accuracy to within 0.3 m under the correct conditions with strong potential to serve as the basis for an effective indoor navigation system to assist warehouse workers with disabilities. Implications for rehabilitation An automated job coach could improve employability of and job retention for people with cognitive disabilities. An indoor navigation system using ultra high frequency radio frequency identification was proposed with an average positioning accuracy of 0.3 m. The proposed system, in combination with a non-linear context-aware prompting system, could be used as an automated job coach for warehouse order fillers with cognitive disabilities.

Flexible and capsule endoscopy for screening, diagnosis and treatment.

Endoscopy dates back to the 1860s, but many of the most significant advancements have been made within the past decade. With the integration of robotics, the ability to precisely steer and advance traditional flexible endoscopes has been realized, reducing patient pain and improving clinician ergonomics. Additionally, wireless capsule endoscopy, a revolutionary alternative to traditional scopes, enables inspection of the digestive system with minimal discomfort for the patient or the need for sedation, mitigating some of the risks of flexible endoscopy. This review presents a research update on robotic endoscopic systems, including both flexible scope and capsule technologies, detailing actuation methods and therapeutic capabilities. A future perspective on endoscopic potential for screening, diagnostic and therapeutic gastrointestinal procedures is also presented.

Wireless tissue palpation for intraoperative detection of lumps in the soft tissue.

In an open surgery, identification of precise margins for curative tissue resection is performed by manual palpation. This is not the case for minimally invasive and robotic procedures, where tactile feedback is either distorted or not available. In this paper, we introduce the concept of intraoperative wireless tissue palpation. The wireless palpation probe (WPP) is a cylindrical device (15 mm in diameter, 60 mm in length) that can be deployed through a trocar incision and directly controlled by the surgeon to create a volumetric stiffness distribution map of the region of interest. This map can then be used to guide the tissue resection to minimize healthy tissue loss. The wireless operation prevents the need for a dedicated port and reduces the chance of instrument clashing in the operating field. The WPP is able to measure in real time the indentation pressure with a sensitivity of 34 Pa, the indentation depth with an accuracy of 0.68 mm, and the probe position with a maximum error of 11.3 mm in a tridimensional workspace. The WPP was assessed on the benchtop in detecting the local stiffness of two different silicone tissue simulators (elastic modulus ranging from 45 to 220 kPa), showing a maximum relative error below 5%. Then, in vivo trials were aimed to identify an agar-gel lump injected into a porcine liver and to assess the device usability within the frame of a laparoscopic procedure. The stiffness map created intraoperatively by the WPP was compared with a map generated ex vivo by a standard uniaxial material tester, showing less than 8% local stiffness error at the site of the lump.

A quasi-static model of wheel-tissue interaction for surgical robotics.

Wheel-driven mobile in vivo robotic devices can provide an unconstrained platform for visualization and task performance. Careful understanding of the wheel-tissue interaction is necessary to predict in vivo performance of medical mobility systems. Here, an analytical study of the friction involving rolling contact of a surgical wheel, moving at constant velocities over soft tissue, is presented and verified. A quasi-static frictionless solution is first derived from existing theory, and newly developed theory considering frictional effects is later introduced. In this analysis, the effect of friction on wheel mobility over a viscoelastic substrate is analyzed with wheel velocity as the only changing variable. The analytical model is later verified by experiments and Finite Element Method (FEM) simulations. A simple application of this model to help design a surgical robot is also presented. Additional results indicate that the resistance force, which arises from the tissue viscosity, approaches zero for small and very large wheel velocities.

The design and characterization of a testing platform for quantitative evaluation of tread performance on multiple biological substrates.

In this study, an experimental platform is developed to quantitatively measure the performance of robotic wheel treads in a dynamic environment. The platform imposes a dynamic driving condition for a single robot wheel, where the wheel is rotated on a translating substrate, thereby inducing slip. The normal force of the wheel can be adjusted mechanically, while the rotational velocity of the wheel and the translational velocity of the substrate can be controlled using an open-loop control system. Wheel slip and translational speed can be varied autonomously while wheel traction force is measured using a load cell. The testing platform is characterized by testing one micropatterned polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) tread on three substrates (dry synthetic tissue, hydrated synthetic tissue, and excised porcine small bowel tissue), at three normal forces (0.10, 0.20, and 0.30 N), 13 slip ratios (-0.30 to 0.30 in increments of 0.05), and three translational speeds (2, 3, and 6 mm/s). Additionally, two wheels (micropatterned and smooth PDMS) are tested on beef liver at the same three normal forces and translational speeds for a tread comparison. An analysis of variance revealed that the platform can detect statistically significant differences between means when observing normal forces, translational speeds, slip ratios, treads, and substrates. The variance due to within (platform error, P = 1) and between trials (human error, P = 0.152) is minimal when compared to the normal force (P = 0.036), translational speed ( P = 0.059), slip ratio (P = 0), tread (P = 0.004), and substrate variances ( P = 0). In conclusion, this precision testing platform can be used to determine wheel tread performance differences on the three substrates and for each of the studied parameters. Future use of the platform could lead to an optimized micropattern-based mobility system, under given operating conditions, for implementation on a robotic capsule endoscope.

Surgical evaluation of a novel tethered robotic capsule endoscope using micro-patterned treads.

BACKGROUND: The state-of-the-art technology for gastrointestinal (GI) tract exploration is a capsule endoscope (CE). Capsule endoscopes are pill-sized devices that provide visual feedback of the GI tract as they move passively through the patient. These passive devices could benefit from a mobility system enabling maneuverability and controllability. Potential benefits of a tethered robotic capsule endoscope (tRCE) include faster travel speeds, reaction force generation for biopsy, and decreased capsule retention. METHODS: In this work, a tethered CE is developed with an active locomotion system for mobility within a collapsed lumen. Micro-patterned polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) treads are implemented onto a custom capsule housing as a mobility method. The tRCE housing contains a direct current (DC) motor and gear train to drive the treads, a video camera for visual feedback, and two light sources (infrared and visible) for illumination. RESULTS: The device was placed within the insufflated abdomen of a live anesthetized pig to evaluate mobility performance on a planar tissue surface, as well as within the cecum to evaluate mobility performance in a collapsed lumen. The tRCE was capable of forward and reverse mobility for both planar and collapsed lumen tissue environments. Also, using an onboard visual system, the tRCE was capable of demonstrating visual feedback within an insufflated, anesthetized porcine abdomen. CONCLUSION: Proof-of-concept in vivo tRCE mobility using micro-patterned PDMS treads was shown. This suggests that a similar method could be implemented in future smaller, faster, and untethered RCEs.