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News: robots could soon be operating on beating human hearts while a surgeon based in a different part of the world directs the procedure remotely, according to a designer working on a new generation of medical equipment.

The surgeon would see a static heart on a 3D screen and the robots would attune themselves to the heart’s movement, overcoming many of the risks of existing heart surgery techniques.

“Our ultimate ambition is robot-supported surgery on the beating heart,” said Tilo Wüsthoff, an industrial designer at German national aeronautics and space research centre DLR. “For the surgeon this means that he will see a virtually stabilised video picture of the beating heart. He can focus on his task while the robot follows the motion of the beating heart.”

Surgeons sitting at a remote console would use telemanipulation to control the robot arms, allowing sophisticated operations to be carried out using minimally invasive surgery (MIS) techniques that require minimal incisions in the patient’s skin.

Telemanipulation techniques would also allow surgeons on earth to operate on astronauts in space, Wüsthoff said. “Ensuring medical assistance for astronauts with telemanipulated robots is part of different visions for long-term space missions to remote locations such as Mars,” he said.

MiroSurge, the surgery-performing robots developed by Wüsthoff, appear in the science fiction movie Ender’s Game, which was released this month.The robots carry out a remote operation on Ender, the lead character, who is an astronaut fighting off an alien invasion of earth. “The robot removes an implant from [lead character] Ender’s neck,” said Wüsthoff.

Minimally invasive surgery is preferable to open surgery because there is less risk of infection and quicker recovery times. However complex operations such as heart surgery are difficult to carry out using MIS techniques, because the surgeon cannot see what is happening and because the of the movement of the beating heart.

Surgeons today use a heart-lung machine to take over the functions of the heart during surgery, but this is traumatic and risky to the patient. MicroSurge techniques would allow the patient’s heart to continue beating normally while the surgeon would watch the operation on a 3D screen via an endoscope within the patient’s body, which would show an apparently static heart.

“[It] allows the surgeon to focus on his medical skills,” said Wüsthoff. “He can get back to being a surgeon instead of an operator of a complex technical system.”

The MicroSurge robot arms would control slender surgical implements that would be inserted through small openings in the patient’s skin. Several robots mounted around the operating table would work together to carry out surgery.

Here’s a short interview with Tilo Wüsthoff:

Rose Etherington: How does MiroSurge feature in the Ender’s Game movie?

Tilo Wüsthoff: MiroSurge is part of a key sequence at the beginning of the film where the robot removes an implant from [lead character] Ender’s neck that is part of the military training/observation programme.

Rose Etherington: How realistic is this? How will robot-assisted surgery will develop next?

Tilo Wüsthoff: The DLR is working on a telesurgery scenario called MiroSurge that consists of a master console (input) and three robots that are tele-operated by a surgeon. Our aim is to provide a truly versatile system for robot assisted minimal invasive surgery. On that we are working together with surgeons and their teams.

These people are creative minds too and in the future it will be the users, it will be the medical staff that will come up with ideas and concepts for novel surgical procedures in the operating room.

Rose Etherington: What kind of advances in procedures or machinery could we see in five or ten years’ time?

Tilo Wüsthoff: The key objective of the DLR MiroSurge system is to overcome the drawbacks of conventional minimal invasive surgery: the surgeon virtually regains direct access to the operating field by having 3D endoscopic sight, force feedback, and restored hand-eye-coordination. So it is actually the technical complexity of the system that allows the surgeon to focus on his medical skills. He can get back to being a surgeon instead of an operator of a complex technical system.

Our ultimate ambition is robot-supported surgery on the beating heart. The application of the heart-lung machine would become obsolete for a whole variety of procedures that way. Collaterally, the very traumatizing effects of the heart-lung machine on the patient could be avoided (eg blood contact with extrinsic surfaces, inevitable blood clotting attenuation, typical generalized inflammation reaction).

For the surgeon this means that he will see a virtually stabilized video picture of the beating heart. He can focus on his task while the robot follows the motion of the beating heart.

Rose Etherington: Would the surgeon still need to be in the operating theatre?

Tilo Wüsthoff: A key aspect of robot assisted technology is that it can be used in a telepresence setup, meaning that the surgeon can operate in a remote location. For us as part of the DLR, the national aeronautics and space research centre of the Federal Republic of Germany, this is important in the context of space travel. Ensuring medical assistance for astronauts with tele-manipulated robots is part of different visions for long-term space missions to remote locations such as Mars.

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beating human hearts appeared first on Dezeen.

Focus sur 2veinte, un studio de conception graphique et de motion situé à Buenos Aires, qui a présenté cette vidéo d’animation « Looking for a Fight ». Inspiré par les codes de films de type Kaiju Eiga et les dessins animés japonais, cette vidéo colorée nous invite à découvrir un grand combat entre deux robots.

Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology have built a flying robot that can guide people around complex urban environments or aid search-and-rescue missions, in an attempt to show that drones can perform useful tasks as well as sinister ones (+ movie).

The SkyCall quadcopter, designed by research group Senseable City Lab at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, acts like an electronic flying guide dog, hovering just ahead of the user and guiding them to their destination.

Yaniv Jacob Turgeman, research and development lead on the project, said SkyCall was designed to counter the sinister reputation of drones, and show they can be useful. “Our imaginations of flying sentient vehicles are filled with dystopian notions of surveillance and control, but this technology should be tasked with optimism,” he told Dezeen.

“The urban UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) will guide us in disorienting situations, support search and rescue efforts, track environmental problems, and even act as digital insects re-introducing natural biodiversity to our man-made environments,” he added. “As a networked intelligence with a physical form, the urban UAV offers an alternative interface to the digital layers of the city.”

A prototype of the SkyCall quadcopter has already been used on test missions to guide students around the MIT campus in Cambridge, USA.

Students and visitors call for a SkyCall tour guide via a customised mobile app. When the users press the ‘call’ button, the nearest vehicle locates the caller’s phone and location via GPS and sets off to meet them.

The vehicle arrives in front of the user and awaits instructions of where to go. The visitor can then type in a simple code to tell the drone where in the campus they wish to go.

The drone travels at walking speed, hovering around two metres in front of the visitor, who can press “pause” to get the drone to hold a stationary position. The drone provides information about locations it passes by “speaking” to the user via their smartphone.

“UAV technology holds huge disruptive potential,” project lead Chris Green told Dezeen. “We want to harness this and specifically explore its value to the city and its inhabitants.”

He added: “Rather than the visitor diverting their attention to a map, the autonomous guide provides an intuitive navigational system of simply ‘following’.”

Other robots featured on Dezeen recently include a flock of helicopter robots that can detect each others’ positions and join together to create a larger flying machine and a tiny robotic insect that hovers in the air like a fly.

See more robots »
See more technology »

Photographs are courtesy of MIT SENSEable City Lab.

Here’s a project description from the project team:

SkyCall by MIT SENSEable City Lab

How can we re-imagine UAV technology, to help us navigate challenging situations and complex environments? This is the premise for SkyCall – an autonomous flying quadcopter and personal tour guide – operating in one of mankind’s most difficult and disorientating labyrinths: MIT campus. We tested this technology on someone you would typically expect to be lost within MIT.

Development

Our Lab is exploring two distinct development paths of UAV technology: a quadcopter’s capacity to autonomously sense and perceive its environment, and its ability to interface and interact with people. These parallel aims steered the development of SkyCall’s tour-guide system, resulting in a platform that can efficiently locate, communicate with, and guide visitors around MIT campus, specifically along predetermined routes or towards user-determined destinations.

A custom SkyCall app was developed for human/UAV interface, enabling the visitor to make specific requests, and the UAV to both locate and wirelessly communicate with them. When the user presses the ‘call’ button, SkyCall instantaneously accesses the GPS location of the visitor’s phone and relays spatial coordinates to the nearest available UAV.

The quadcopter itself utilises onboard autopilot and GPS navigation systems with sonar sensors and WiFi connectivity (via a ground station), enabling it to fly autonomously and communicate with the user via the SkyCall app. The UAV also integrates an onboard camera as both an information gathering system (relaying images to a ‘base’ location upon encountering the user), as well as a manually-controlled camera, accessible to the visitor-come-tourist again via the SkyCall app.

Future

SkyCall is Phase I of a larger development program that is currently underway at Senseable City Lab, with the broader aim of exploring novel, positive uses of UAV technology in the urban context. This project offers a case study within our ongoing research initiative, and suggests promising new infrastructure potentials.

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MIT Senseable City Lab appeared first on Dezeen.

News: a masters student at the Southern California Institute of Architecture in Los Angeles has developed a method of using a robotic arm to 3D print objects in a tank of gel, allowing freeform printing without the need for support structures and potentially adding an “undo” function to remove errors (+ movie).

The gel supports the liquid resin deposited by the robot while it hardens, overcoming a shortcoming of other 3D printing technologies, where structures to prevent the objects from collapsing need to be printed along with the objects themselves.

The process also allows for vector-based printing, meaning the print head can move in three dimensions rather than having to build up objects from extremely thin two-dimensional layers.

Brian Harms developed the Suspended Depositions process as part of the ESTm (Emerging Systems and Technologies) course at SCI-Arc. “By injecting and suspending light-curing resin in a gelatinous medium, one is afforded the ability to shape freeform objects without the need for molds or other subtractive manufacturing processes that would otherwise be necessary,” Harms explains.

The resin used to print hardens when exposed to light and is injected through a special needle-like print head developed by Harms and his team, which is mounted on a robotic arm. Once the object is removed from the gel, the gel can be reused.

The technique potentially allows for parts of the printed object to be undone, by sucking or scooping the still uncured resin from the gel without affecting the rest of the structure.

Harms’ project follows other recent breakthroughs in “freeform” – or unsupported – 3D printing. In May, Petr Novikov and Saša Jokić from Barcelona’s Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia unveiled a robot arm that can print freeform objects using thermosetting plastic. In February, a 3D-printing pen that can doodle freeform objects raised almost $500,000 in its first day of fundraising on Kickstarter.

See all our stories about 3D printing and check out Print Shift, our print-on-demand magazine about the subject.

Here’s some text from Harms:

Suspended Depositions

This project aims to blur the line between processes of design and fabrication in the context of rapid prototyping by increasing the fluidity of the fabrication process through coordinated material and robotic processes. The project exploits feedback loops that allow the process to be used as a live generative form-finding tool as well as a method for reification of designed objects.

By injecting and suspending light-curing resin in a gelatinous medium, one is afforded the ability to shape freeform objects without the need for molds or other subtractive manufacturing processes that would otherwise be necessary. The gel acts as an omnidirectional support material which is reusable, so there is no wasted material.

One major distinction between this project and other rapid prototyping processes is the ability to utilize 3D vector-based toolpaths. Virtually all other processes use paths generated via contouring a digital model, and rely on the hardening of each successive layer before being able to move on to the next.

The suspension of resin in space without added support material allows for the ability to navigate and fabricate directly on and around other existing objects within the Gel, as well as the ability to observe the process from any angle. The suspension of time in this process allows for tool changes, manual injections, on-the-fly robotic injections, multi-material injections, live modification of the digital or physical model, and the ability to physically “undo” (resin removal via suction or scooping).

Special thanks to Peter Testa, Brandon Kruysman, Jonathan Proto, Devyn Weiser, and Kyle and Liz Von Hassln.

SCI-Arc Fall 2012
Testa Vertical ESTm Studio
Instructor: Peter Testa / Brandon Kruysman / Jonathan Proto
AT: Peter Vikar
Project Lead: Brian Harms (nstrmnt.com)
Project Team: Haejun Jung / Vince Huang / Yuying Chen

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3D printing with “undo” function appeared first on Dezeen.

News: a tiny robotic insect that hovers in the air like a fly has been built by scientists at Harvard University (+ movies).

The robot, which weighs just 80 milligrams and is the size of a small coin, can hover in the air for up to 20 seconds.

Its Harvard University developers modelled the robot’s movement on real flies, which flap their wings around 120 times per second.

The researchers made the wings with piezoelectric material, which contracts when a small electrical charge is passed through it.

Switching the voltage on and off at high speeds produces a rapid contracting effect that mimics the movement of a fly’s tiny wing muscles.

For now, the robots have to be tethered to thin copper wires that provide electric power and navigation information, but the researchers hope that a battery will one day be lightweight enough to be attached to the robot itself.

The team suggests the robots could be used for search-and-rescue operations, monitoring environmental damage, tracing chemicals or pollinating crops, while their discreet size could also make them suitable for military surveillance.

The RoboBee project was reported in the journal Science this week by Dr Robert Wood and his team at Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard.

Last year we reported on robot helicopters programmed to lift and stack polystyrene bricks into a six metre-high tower, while other machines we’ve featured include a duo of robotic bartenders and a robotic 3D printer that builds architecture from sand  – see all robots.

Photographs are by Kevin Ma and Pakpong Chirarattananon.

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takes flight appeared first on Dezeen.