Jun 18, 2018
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Flexible, soft robotic arm for endoscopic surgery
Week in Brief (31 July – 4 August)
Credit: Harvard University. Soft pop-up arm performing tissue counter-traction during an ex-vivo test on a porcine stomach.
A flexible robotic arm for endoscopes that has integrated sensing has been developed by a team of researchers from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University, USA.
The robotic arm remains flat on the endoscope until it is required, at which point it can be raised and used for surgical procedures. The arm is a hybrid robotic that uses a rigid skeleton surrounded by soft materials, and can be scaled down to 1 millimetre. This is particularly useful for endoscopic medical procedures that until now have used rigid surgical tools.
Tommaso Ranzani, a postdoctoral fellow at SEAS and the Wyss Institute and coauthor of the paper, commented, ‘At the millimeter scale, a soft device becomes so soft that it can’t damage tissue but it also can’t manipulate the tissue in any meaningful way [...] That limits the application of soft microsystems for performing therapy. The question is, how can we develop soft robots that are still able to generate the necessary forces without compromising safety.’
Soft actuators, powered by water, have been integrated into the device. Sheila Russo, postdoctoral fellow at SEAS and Wyss and lead author of the paper, commented, ‘We found that by integrating soft fluidic microactuators into the rigid pop-up structures, we could create soft pop-up mechanisms that increased the performance of the actuators in terms of the force output and the predictability and controllability of the motion [...] The idea behind this technology is basically to obtain the best of both worlds by combining soft robotic technologies with origami-inspired rigid structures. Using this fabrication method, we were able to design a device that can lie flat when the endoscope is navigating to the surgical area, and when the surgeon reaches the area they want to operate on, they can deploy a soft system that can safely and effectively interact with tissue.’
Harvard’s Office of Technology Development has filed a patent application on the technology.
Credit: Harvard University. Multi-articulated soft pop-up robotic arm. Concept of the system (left): An endoscope navigating in the GI tract and detail of the arm mounted at the tip of the endoscope. Soft pop-up arm (right) performing tissue counter-traction during an ex-vivo test on a porcine stomach.
To find out more visit, bit.ly/2vvUZqh
To read An Additive Millimeter-Scale Fabrication Method for Soft Biocompatible Actuators and Sensors, visit bit.ly/2wrtdbY
In other news:
- A method of forming a thin layer of graphene on the surface of wood has been developed by a team of scientists at Rice University, USA.
- UK public support for fracking reaches new low
- Engineers at the University of California, USA, have created a ceramic skull implant that allows doctors to deliver ultrasound therapies into the brain
To find out more on materials science, packaging and engineering news, visit our website IOM3 at or follow us on Twitter @MaterialsWorld for regular news updates.
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