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School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering Modeling, Motion, and Medical Robotics Laboratory (M3 Robotics Lab)

M3 robotics lab showcases research at 2018 Research Expo

M3 robotics lab participated in annual 2018 Research Expo held by Washington State University. At this Expo people presented their research and judges graded them based on some rubric such as novelty of research, the quality of presentation, poster format, and the importance of research. 2 researchers will be awarded with scholarship in each category.

Mahdieh Babaiasl presented her research on Waterjet Steerable Needles: 

We presented our ongoing research on Water-jet Steerable needles. Water-jet technology has been used in industry for a long time for different applications.

Watch a short video below on cutting soft tissues with waterjet:

 

In recent years, it has been used in medical applications such as resection of the liver, surgery, and bone cutting. The use of water-jet technology in steerable needles is not studied before and to the best of our knowledge this is the first time that water-jet technology is incorporated in steerable needles.

As a side note, steerable needles are flexible needles that due to their flexibility can be directed to reach to difficult-to-reach places in the body that were unreachable using traditional needles. Decreasing the insertion force is really important in terms of reaching to the desired places precisely, reducing the needle bending, tissue deflection, and the pain felt by the patient. Different researchers tried to do it using different approaches.

Mahdieh Babaiasl is presenting her research to judges.

We developed an experimental setup that consists of a linear actuator that drives the custom-designed needle into the tissue, and a force sensor at the base of the needle measures the forces acting on the tip of the needle. 3 different experiments are performed, that are inserting the needle into the tissue without running water-jet (we call this the traditional needles approach), inserting the needle into the same channel without water-jet to measure only frictional forces (because the channel is already cut and there is no cutting forces acting on the tip of the needle), and insertions with running water-jet.  Experimental results verified that our hypotheses are right and that water-jet eliminates tip forces and only frictional force remains. The force on the needle is even smaller than the friction in the case of insertions with water-jet due to the lubrication that water provides in the channel.

We also measured the depth of cut of water-jet as a function of fluid velocity, and concluded that when the width of water-jet nozzle is sufficiently small, the depth of cut is a linear function of fluid velocity.

The Daily Evergreen interviewed m3 robotics lab team members on their research

On Jan., 2018, The Daily Evergreen, WSU newspaper, interviewed m3 robotics lab team members on the ongoing research in our lab. Prof. Swesnen talked about a new approach using waterjet, allowing to direct the needle exactly where it wants to go. This method also eliminates resistance, making it easier to press the needle in further. Prof. Swensen also added that our lab is at a point where we’ve proved water-jet steerable needles work. He also talked about other ongoing research in our lab namely fracture-directed steerable needles, and tunably compliant materials.

The complete interview can be found at here.

High school students visit M3 robotics lab

On Wednesday morning, M3 robotics lab was host to visiting high school students. The aim of this visit was to grab the attention of the kids to areas such as Engineering and Robotics ad encourage them to think about engineering as their future majors and later as careers.

Professor Swensen started off with asking who is actually interested in robotics to see how many of them will change their minds at the end of the day. He continues with an introduction to robotics and grabbed the attention of the kids with introducing movies such as I-Robot and then mentioned some of the real-life robots such as Darpa robot. He continues by mentioning human-robot interaction and why is it important to incorporate safety in robots because the robots will interact with human beings. Another topic that was brought up in the introduction was the aging society and how it puts burden on people in terms of taking care of senior citizens. He brought of the notion of assistive robotics that can help this aging population.

The second part of the visit was the introduction of the research that was going on in the lab. The kids became acquainted with steerable needles and soft robotics. They also became acquainted with two notions of “plastic” and “elastic” and at the end of the visit they could distinguish the difference between the two. They observed a tendon mimicking robot that bends when heated and the students experienced its function with their own fingers. the kids also became acquainted with Nitinol needles and that they are made out of Nickel and Titanium.

The last part of the visit was working on an inchworm robot that was printed in 3D printer and the kids put a metal on it and heated it either using a hot tool or moving electrical current through the metal part. The heat made the worm bend and when there was no heat the worm was back to its original shape causing it to move. At this part, they were really engaged in the process and was absorbed in making the inchworm work.

Heon’s paper is accepted at the ASME 2016 Conference

Heon’s paper entitled “Design and experimentation of a tunably-compliant robotic finger using low melting point metals” is accepted at the ASME 2016 Conference on Smart Materials, Adaptive Structures and Intelligent Systems (SMASIS 2016) held on September 28-30, 2016, Stowe, VT, USA.
Hi paper is about fabrication and testing of a tunably-compliant tendon-driven finger implemented through the geometric design of a skeleton made of the low-melting point Field’s metal encased in a silicone rubber. The initial prototype consists of a skeleton comprised of two rods of the metal, with heating elements in thermal contact with the metal at various points along its length, embedded in an elastomer. The inputs to the systems are both the force exerted on the tendon to bend the finger and the heat introduced to liquefy the metal locally or globally along the length of the finger. Selective localized heating allows multiple joints to be created along the length of the finger.

Fabrication of the project was accomplished via a multiple step process of elastomer casting and liquid metal casting. Heating elements such as power resistors or Ni-Cr wire with electric connections were added as an intermediate step before the final elastomer casting. The addition of a tradition tendon actuation was inserted after all casting steps had been completed. While preliminary, this combination of selective heating and engineered geometry of the low-melting point skeletal structure will allow for further investigation into the skeletal geometry and its effects on local and global changes in device stiffness.

The published paper

New 3D Printer

Lulzbot Taz 6A brand new Lulzbot TAZ 6 3D printer has arrived at the lab!

Rapid prototyping is a key part of research here at the M3 Robotics Lab; our experiments often require small, custom parts designed for very specific purposes. Having a 3D printer in the lab gives us the flexibility to modify designs and print new parts on our own whenever we need them.

The TAZ 6 features a large print volume (nearly the volume of a soccer ball), automatic bed leveling, and automatic tool head cleaning. The TAZ 6 is also compatible with a wide variety of filament materials and tool head upgrades. We are excited to begin using this technology in the M3 Robotics Lab!