16 accepted papers
Liquid sampling from the gastrointestinal (GI) tract offers significant diagnostic advantages. This study presents a novel magnetically actuated Robotic Capsule Chain (RCC) for large volume liquid sample collection within the GI tract. The RCC incorporates a wirelessly powered, on-demand motorized s…
In biomedical engineering, robotic implants have shown new methods to restore and improve bodily function and regenerate tissue. A significant challenge with the design of these devices is to safely actuate them for weeks or months while they reside in a patient's body. The application of a rotating…
Providing oral capsule robots with additional degrees of freedom (DOF), such as robotic arms, is crucial for enhancing their functionality within the body. However, a key challenge arises when using rotating magnetic fields to drive the motor within the robot, as the resulting torque causes the enti
While many inkjet printers employ only four types of ink (i.e. CKMY) to produce a wide range of colors, numerous technical challenges still exist for contemporary 3D printers to fabricate various materials and generate composite products such as electric devices. Conversely, there have been attempts…
This paper addresses the challenge of actuating millimetre-sized motors, which are wirelessly driven by external magnetic fields. Traditional approaches, relying on rotating magnetic fields, often inadvertently cause the entire robot – especially if it is small and lightweight – to rotate, instead o…
Inspired by human proteins that are synthesized from only 20 types of amino acids, the development of self-assembly methods that allow robots to be built simply by randomly stirring the parts has been explored for many years. The key challenges include how to synthesize parts in pieces into a three-…
Inspired by the traditional art of paper folding, origami, autonomous production of 3D structures from 2D sheets can be achieved by the implementation of self-folding techniques. One technique to achieve such transformation is the usage of thermo-responsive smart materials such as self-folding polym…
In biomedical engineering, robotic implants provide new methods to restore and improve bodily function, and regenerate tissue. A significant challenge with the design of these devices is to safely actuate them for weeks or months, while they are residing in a patient's body. Magnetic, and other forc…
Remotely controllable and reversible adhesion is highly desirable for surgical operations: it can provide the possibility of non-invasive surgery, flexibility in fixing a patch and surgical manipulation via sticking. In our previous work, we developed a remotely controllable, ingestible, and deploya
A button battery accidentally ingested by a toddler or small child can cause severe damage to the stomach within a short period of time. Once a battery lands on the surface of the esophagus or stomach, it can run a current in the tissue and induce a chemical reaction resulting in injury. Following o…
Soft robotics has advanced the field of biomedical engineering by creating safer technologies for interfacing with the human body. One of the challenges in this field is the realization of modular soft basic constituents and accessible assembly methods to increase the versatility of soft robots. We…
Gastric ulcer is a chronic and complex (and often complete) erosion of the stomach wall that happens as a complication of a previous chronic, inflammatory process. It represents a catastrophic situation in which the patient is critical and its conditions need to be treated fast. This study presents…
This paper describes additive self-folding, an origami-inspired rapid fabrication approach for creating actuatable compliant structures. Recent work in 3-D printing and other rapid fabrication processes have mostly focused on rigid objects or objects that can achieve small deformations. In contrast,…
Developing miniature robots that can carry out versatile clinical procedures inside the body under the remote instructions of medical professionals has been a long time challenge. In this paper, we present origami-based robots that can be ingested into the stomach, locomote to a desired location, pa
Computational thinking is an important part of a modern education, and robotics provides a powerful tool for teaching programming logic in an interactive and engaging way. The robot garden presented in this paper is a distributed multi-robot system capable of running autonomously or under user contr…
A miniature robotic device that can fold-up on the spot, accomplish tasks, and disappear by degradation into the environment promises a range of medical applications but has so far been a challenge in engineering. This work presents a sheet that can self-fold into a functional 3D robot, actuate imme…