Researchers have developed a highly sensitive, human-like robotic ‘finger’ that can safely perform routine physical exams like a doctor. It is said that ‘Robodoctors’ will soon be available in medical institutions.
A doctor’s finger is a diagnostic tool used to find out all kinds of information about you and your health. For example, health care professionals may use their fingers to measure your pulse, feel abnormal lumps of tissue under the skin, and insert them into a dark, warm area for diagnostic purposes.
Now, researchers from the Department of Precision Machinery and Precision Metrology at the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) have created a human-inspired, bendable robotic ‘finger’ to perform routine health checks like those listed above.
“Physical examination is one of the most widely available, effective, and safe approaches for early detection of lumps and other signs of breast cancer,” the researchers said. “In traditional Chinese medicine, doctors can understand the patient’s heart condition by measuring the pulse at the patient’s wrist.
“On the one hand, due to the lack of trained and experienced doctors, we may not be able to identify some diseases or potential risks in time to prevent their deterioration. On the other hand, many people do not want to undergo a physical examination, especially those who are being examined by a doctor of the opposite sex. Therefore, robotic facilitation has attracted great interest in the research community.”
Considering the complexity of the human hand, even the most advanced robotic hands are still far behind in matching its capabilities. So it’s a pretty big deal for the USTC team to achieve human-like tactile sensing for palpation, the feeling for abnormalities, and proprioception, the ability to sense the movement and position of body parts, from soft robotic fingers. transaction.
Wang et al.
BSF, short for Bioinspired Soft Finger, consists of multi-mode sensing integrated with a bending actuation body. It has a finger-like semicircular shape with a pneumatic network (PneuNet) structure, a class of soft actuators consisting of a series of channels and chambers inside an elastomer. The BSF bends inward when pressurized as the air chamber expands. Total length is 129 mm (5.08 inches).
“The proposed BSF has a simple design and only needs to measure the resistance and inductance of two terminals to achieve human-like touch recognition,” the researchers explain. “Like the human finger, BSF can recognize rich information about the physical properties of objects through active touch.”
Researchers tested how BSFs perform medical facilitation like doctors. It can retrieve and recognize model chunks of some model tissue over a large area. Additionally, ‘RoboFinger’ succeeded in finding an artery in the participant’s wrist and measuring the pulse. The study did not mention whether the fingers were used to perform any type of invasive prognosis.
“We demonstrated that the BSF can press and ‘feel’ the rigidity of an object and perform safe and accurate robotic palpation similar to that performed by a physician,” the researchers said. “Furthermore, the (six degrees of freedom) robotic arm Mounted on a BSD, it can locate arteries in a participant’s wrist and obtain (pulses) for real-time analysis. These findings highlight the potential of ‘robodoctors’ performing physical examinations in the future.”
At least there is little chance that the BSF will face any cold problems.
The study was published in the journal Cell Report: Physical Sciences.
