Cyborg and bionic systems (Washington, D.C.)最新文献

Magnetic beads manipulation in microfluidic chips is a promising research field for biological application, especially in the detection of biological targets. In this review, we intend to present a thorough and in-depth overview of recent magnetic beads manipulation in microfluidic chips and its biological application. First, we introduce the mechanism of magnetic manipulation in microfluidic chip, including force analysis, particle properties, and surface modification. Then, we compare some existing methods of magnetic manipulation in microfluidic chip and list their biological application. Besides, the suggestions and outlook for future developments in the magnetic manipulation system are also discussed and summarized.

The robot used for disaster rescue or field exploration requires the ability of fast moving on flat road and adaptability on complex terrain. The hybrid wheel-legged robot (WLR-3P, prototype of the third-generation hydraulic wheel-legged robot) has the characteristics of fast and efficient mobility on flat surfaces and high environmental adaptability on rough terrains. In this paper, 3 design requirements are proposed to improve the mobility and environmental adaptability of the robot. To meet these 3 requirements, 2 design principles for each requirement are put forward. First, for light weight and low inertia with high stiffness, 3-dimensional printing technology and lightweight material are adopted. Second, the integrated hydraulically driven unit is used for high power density and fast response actuation. Third, the micro-hydraulic power unit achieves power autonomy, adopting the hoseless design to strengthen the reliability of the hydraulic system. What is more, the control system including hierarchical distributed electrical system and control strategy is presented. The mobility and adaptability of WLR-3P are demonstrated with a series of experiments. Finally, the robot can achieve a speed of 13.6 km/h and a jumping height of 0.2 m.

Climbing behavior is a superior motion skill that animals have evolved to obtain a more beneficial position in complex natural environments. Compared to animals, current bionic climbing robots are less agile, stable, and energy-efficient. Further, they locomote at a low speed and have poor adaptation to the substrate. One of the key elements that can improve their locomotion efficiency is the active and flexible feet or toes observed in climbing animals. Inspired by the active attachment-detachment behavior of geckos, a hybrid pneumatic-electric-driven climbing robot with active attachment-detachment bionic flexible feet (toes) was developed. Although the introduction of bionic flexible toes can effectively improve the robot's adaptability to the environment, it also poses control challenges, specifically, the realization of attachment-detachment behavior by the mechanics of the feet, the realization of hybrid drive control with different response characteristics, and the interlimb collaboration and limb-foot coordination with a hysteresis effect. Through the analysis of geckos' limbs and foot kinematic behavior during climbing, rhythmic attachment-detachment strategies and coordination behavior between toes and limbs at different inclines were identified. To enable the robot to achieve similar foot attachment-detachment behavior for climbing ability enhancement, we propose a modular neural control framework comprising a central pattern generator module, a post-processing central pattern generation module, a hysteresis delay line module, and an actuator signal conditioning module. Among them, the hysteresis adaptation module helps the bionic flexible toes to achieve variable phase relationships with the motorized joint, thus enabling proper limb-to-foot coordination and interlimb collaboration. The experiments demonstrated that the robot with neural control achieved proper coordination, resulting in a foot with a 285% larger adhesion area than that of a conventional algorithm. In addition, in the plane/arc climbing scenario, the robot with coordination behavior increased by as much as 150%, compared to the incoordinated one owing to its higher adhesion reliability.

Inertial microfluidics uses the intrinsic fluid inertia in confined channels to manipulate the particles and cells in a simple, high-throughput, and precise manner. Inertial focusing in a straight channel results in several equilibrium positions within the cross sections. Introducing channel curvature and adjusting the cross-sectional aspect ratio and shape can modify inertial focusing positions and can reduce the number of equilibrium positions. In this work, we introduce an innovative way to adjust the inertial focusing and reduce equilibrium positions by embedding asymmetrical obstacle microstructures. We demonstrated that asymmetrical concave obstacles could break the symmetry of original inertial focusing positions, resulting in unilateral focusing. In addition, we characterized the influence of obstacle size and 3 asymmetrical obstacle patterns on unilateral inertial focusing. Finally, we applied differential unilateral focusing on the separation of 10- and 15-μm particles and isolation of brain cancer cells (U87MG) from white blood cells (WBCs), respectively. The results indicated an excellent cancer cell recovery of 96.4% and WBC rejection ratio of 98.81%. After single processing, the purity of the cancer cells was dramatically enhanced from 1.01% to 90.13%, with an 89.24-fold enrichment. We believe that embedding asymmetric concave micro-obstacles is a new strategy to achieve unilateral inertial focusing and separation in curved channels.

The sound generated by body carries important information about our health status physically and psychologically. In the past decades, we have witnessed a plethora of successes achieved in the field of body sound analysis. Nevertheless, the fundamentals of this young field are still not well established. In particular, publicly accessible databases are rarely developed, which dramatically restrains a sustainable research. To this end, we are launching and continuously calling for participation from the global scientific community to contribute to the Voice of the Body (VoB) archive. We aim to build an open access platform to collect the well-established body sound databases in a well standardized way. Moreover, we hope to organize a series of challenges to promote the development of audio-driven methods for healthcare via the proposed VoB. We believe that VoB can help break the walls between different subjects toward an era of Medicine 4.0 enriched by audio intelligence.

Carbon-based nanomaterials, including carbon nanotubes, carbon nanospheres, and carbon nanofibers, are becoming a research hotspot due to their unique structure and good mechanical, thermal, electrical, optical, and chemical properties. With the development of material synthesis technology, they can be functionalized and used in various fields such as energy, environment, and biomedicine. In particular, stimuli-responsive carbon-based nanomaterials have stood out in recent years because of their smart behavior. Researchers have applied carbon-based nanomaterials to different disease treatments based on their stimulus-response properties. In this paper, based on stimuli-responsive carbon-based nanomaterials' morphology, we categorize them into carbon nanotubes, carbon nanospheres, and carbon nanofibers according to their morphology. Then, their applications in probes, bioimaging, tumor therapy, and other fields are discussed. Finally, we address the advantages and disadvantages of carbon-based stimuli-responsive nanomaterials and discuss their future perspective.

The innovation of wearable devices is advancing rapidly. Activity monitors can be used to improve the total hip replacement (THR) patients' recovery process and reduce costs. This systematic review assessed the body-worn accelerometers used in studies to enhance the rehabilitation process and monitor THR patients. Electronic databases such as Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews library, CINAHL CompleteVR, Science Citation Index, and MedlineVR from January 2000 to January 2022 were searched. Due to inclusion criteria, fourteen eligible studies that utilised commercial wearable technology to monitor physical activity both before and after THR were identified. Their evidence quality was assessed with RoB 2.0 and ROBINS-I. This study demonstrates that wearable device technology might be feasible to predict, monitor, and detect physical activity following THR. They could be used as a motivational tool to increase patients' mobility and enhance the recovery process. Also, wearable activity monitors could provide a better insight into the individual's activity level in contrast to subjective self-reported questionnaires. However, they have some limitations, and further evidence is needed to establish this technology as the primary device in THR rehabilitation.