Mechanical Engineering Commons^™

Development Of A Soft Robotic Approach For An Intra-Abdominal Wireless Laparoscopic Camera, Hui Liu

Doctoral Dissertations

In Single-Incision Laparoscopic Surgery (SILS), the Magnetic Anchoring and Guidance System (MAGS) arises as a promising technique to provide larger workspaces and field of vision for the laparoscopes, relief space for other instruments, and require fewer incisions. Inspired by MAGS, many concept designs related to fully insertable magnetically driven laparoscopes are developed and tested on the transabdominal operation. However, ignoring the tissue interaction and insertion procedure, most of the designs adopt rigid structures, which not only damage the patients' tissue with excess stress concentration and sliding motion but also require complicated operation for the insertion. Meanwhile, lacking state tracking of …

Modelling, Sensing, And Control Of Weld Beads In Gravity Aligned And Non-Gravity Aligned Orientations For Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing, Joshua J. Penney

Doctoral Dissertations

Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing (WAAM) has recently developed into a viable manufacturing process for large, complex metal parts. The WAAM process uses a Gas Metal Arc Welding (GMAW) torch mounted to an automated motion platform to execute a predetermined path plan based on a desired CAD geometry. As the desired geometry becomes more complex, it is advantageous to utilize out-of-position welding techniques used by human welders to stabilize the weld pool during the deposition of large overhangs. To ensure part accuracy and quality, adding layers of real-time control to manage various aspects of the WAAM process is critical. First, a …

A Generalized Method For Predictive Simulation-Based Lower Limb Prosthesis Design, Mark Price

Doctoral Dissertations

Lower limb prostheses are designed to replace the functions and form of the missing biological anatomy. These functions are hypothesized to improve user outcome measures which are negatively affected by receiving an amputation – such as metabolic cost of transport, preferred walking speed, and perceived discomfort during walking. However, the effect of these design functions on the targeted outcome measures is highly variable, suggesting that these relationships are not fully understood. Biomechanics simulation and modeling tools are increasingly capable of analyzing the effects of a design on the resulting user gait. In this work, prothesis-aided gait is optimized in simulation …

Dynamic In Vivo Skeletal Feature Tracking Via Fluoroscopy Using A Human Gait Model, William Patrick Anderson

Doctoral Dissertations

The Tracking Fluoroscope System II, a mobile robotic fluoroscopy platform, developed and built at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, presently employs a pattern matching algorithm in order to identify and track a marker placed upon a subject’s knee joint of interest. The purpose of this research is to generate a new tracking algorithm based around the human gait cycle for prediction and improving the overall accuracy of joint tracking.

This research centers around processing the acquired x-ray images of the desired knee joint obtained during standard clinical operation in order to identify and track directly through the acquired image. Due …

Belief-Space Planning For Resourceful Manipulation And Mobility, Dirk Ruiken

Doctoral Dissertations

Robots are increasingly expected to work in partially observable and unstructured environments. They need to select actions that exploit perceptual and motor resourcefulness to manage uncertainty based on the demands of the task and environment. The research in this dissertation makes two primary contributions. First, it develops a new concept in resourceful robot platforms called the UMass uBot and introduces the sixth and seventh in the uBot series. uBot-6 introduces multiple postural configurations that enable different modes of mobility and manipulation to meet the needs of a wide variety of tasks and environmental constraints. uBot-7 extends this with the use …

Modeling, Analysis, Force Sensing And Control Of Continuum Robots For Minimally Invasive Surgery, Caroline Bryson Black

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation describes design, modeling and application of continuum robotics for surgical applications, specifically parallel continuum robots (PCRs) and concentric tube manipulators (CTMs). The introduction of robotics into surgical applications has allowed for a greater degree of precision, less invasive access to more remote surgical sites, and user-intuitive interfaces with enhanced vision systems. The most recent developments have been in the space of continuum robots, whose exible structure create an inherent safety factor when in contact with fragile tissues. The design challenges that exist involve balancing size and strength of the manipulators, controlling the manipulators over long transmission pathways, and …

Multi-Classifier Fusion Strategy For Activity And Intent Recognition Of Torso Movements, Abhijit Kadrolkar

Doctoral Dissertations

As assistive, wearable robotic devices are being developed to physically assist their users, it has become crucial to develop safe, reliable methods to coordinate the device with the intentions and motions of the wearer. This dissertation investigates the recognition of user intent during flexion and extension of the human torso in the sagittal plane to be used for control of an assistive exoskeleton for the human torso. A multi-sensor intent recognition approach is developed that combines information from surface electromyogram (sEMG) signals from the user’s muscles and inertial sensors mounted on the user’s body. Intent recognition is implemented by following …

A Lower Limb Prosthesis With Active Alignment For Reduced Limb Loading, Andrew Lapre

Doctoral Dissertations

Over the past decade, the growing field of robotics has created new possibilities in lower limb prostheses. The focus of these new prostheses has been replicating the dynamics of the lost limb in order to restore gait of individuals with lower limb amputations to healthy norms. This places demanding loads on the residual limb. Compensation by the rest of body is high, causes overloading of intact joints and can lead to deterioration of mobility and overall health. Abnormalities remain present in the person’s gait, stemming from the loading of soft tissue and the altered anatomy of the affected limb. In …

Inter-Droplet Membranes For Mechanical Sensing Applications, Nima Tamaddoni Jahromi

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation combines self-assembly phenomena of amphiphilic molecules with soft materials to create and characterize mechanoelectrical transducers and sensors whose sensing elements are thin-film bioinspired membranes comprised of phospholipids or amphiphilic polymers. We show that the structures of these amphiphilic molecules tune the mechanical and electrical properties of these membranes. We show that these properties affect the mechanoelectrical sensing characteristic and range of operation of these membrane transducers. In the experiments, we construct and characterize a membrane-based hair cell embodiment that enables the membrane to be responsive to mechanical perturbations of the hair. The resulting oscillations of membranes formed between …

Modeling, Analysis, And Control Of A Mobile Robot For In Vivo Fluoroscopy Of Human Joints During Natural Movements, Matthew A. Young

Doctoral Dissertations

In this dissertation, the modeling, analysis and control of a multi-degree of freedom (mdof) robotic fluoroscope was investigated. A prototype robotic fluoroscope exists, and consists of a 3 dof mobile platform with two 2 dof Cartesian manipulators mounted symmetrically on opposite sides of the platform. One Cartesian manipulator positions the x-ray generator and the other Cartesian manipulator positions the x-ray imaging device. The robotic fluoroscope is used to x-ray skeletal joints of interest of human subjects performing natural movement activities. In order to collect the data, the Cartesian manipulators must keep the x-ray generation and imaging devices accurately aligned while …

Vision-Based Robot Control In The Context Of Human-Machine Interactions, Andrzej Nycz

Doctoral Dissertations

This research has explored motion control based on visual servoing – in the context of complex human-machine interactions and operations in realistic environments. Two classes of intelligent robotic systems were studied in this context: operator assistance with a high dexterity telerobotic manipulator performing remote tooling-centric tasks, and a bio-robot for X-ray imaging of lower extremity human skeletal joints during natural walking. The combination of human-machine interactions and practical application scenarios has led to the following fundamental contributions: 1) exploration and evaluation of a new concept of acquiring fluoroscope images of musculoskeletal features of interest during natural human motion, 2) creation …

In Situ Preconcentration By Ac Electrokinetics For Rapid And Sensitive Nanoparticle Detection, Kai Yang

Doctoral Dissertations

Reducing cost and time is a major concern in clinical diagnostics. Current molecular diagnostics are multi-step processes that usually take at least several hours or even days to complete multiple reagents delivery, incubations and several washing processes. This highly labor-intensive work and lack of automation could result in reduced reliability and low efficiency. The Laboratory-on-a-chip (LOC), taking advantage of the merger and development of microfluidics and biosensor technology, has shown promise towards a solution for performing analytical tests in a self-contained and compact unit, enabling earlier and decentralized testing. However, challenges are to integrate the fluid regulatory elements on a …

Telerobotic Sensor-Based Tool Control Derived From Behavior-Based Robotics Concepts, Mark William Noakes

Doctoral Dissertations

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Teleoperated task execution for hazardous environments is slow and requires highly skilled operators. Attempts to implement telerobotic assists to improve efficiency have been demonstrated in constrained laboratory environments but are not being used in the field because they are not appropriate for use on actual remote systems operating in complex unstructured environments using typical operators. This work describes a methodology for combining select concepts from behavior-based systems with telerobotic tool control in a way that is compatible …