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Fundamentals and Applications of Micro-Nanorobotics

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A special issue of Micromachines (ISSN 2072-666X). This special issue belongs to the section "A：Physics".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 June 2023) | Viewed by 25486

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Jiangfan Yu

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Guest Editor

School of Science and Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen 518172, China
Interests: micro-nanorobotics; medical robotics; control; soft robotics

Dr. Haojian Lu

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Guest Editor

State Key Laboratory of Industrial Control and Technology, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China
Interests: micro/nano robotics; medical robotics; small-scale bioinspired robotics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Xian Wang

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Guest Editor

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, Queen's University, Kingston, ON K7L 3N6, Canada
Interests: robotics; cell mechanics; medical robotics; microtechnology

Dr. Zhuoran Zhang

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

School of Science and Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen 518000, China
Interests: medical robotics; automaton at micro/nano scales; assisted reproduction technology

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In recent years, robots have played increasingly important roles both in industry and in normal life. At the small scale, microrobots have attracted extensive attention because they are promising for various potential applications in hard-to-reach regions, especially biomedical applications, e.g., on-demand targeted drug delivery, hyperthermia, remote sensing, and biopsy. Drugs or cells can be loaded onto microrobots, and with the guidance of external stimuli, they can reach targeted locations to perform localized therapies. Micro-nanorobotics is a multidisciplinary field, demanding contributions from many aspects, including material sciences, robotics, control, physics, and biomedicine. Different external physical fields can actuate micro-nanorobots, such as magnetic, optical, electric, and acoustic fields. In addition, chemical signaling can also serve as the role for micro-nanorobotic actuation. Researchers have spent a tremendous effort on both fundamental investigations and application studies, including structure and material design, robotic control, fluidics study, drug/cell delivery, localized therapy, and other kinds of applications. This field is still young but blooming, and it still needs more progress from all related aspects. To review the state of the art of micro-nanorobotics, we welcome all original research or review articles from fundamentals to applications of micro-nanorobotics in this Special Issue.

Dr. Jiangfan Yu
Dr. Haojian Lu
Dr. Zhuoran Zhang
Dr. Xian Wang
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Micromachines is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

micro-nanorobotics
control
biomedical applications
functionalized materials
remote actuation

Published Papers (7 papers)

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Research

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19 pages, 6230 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Design and Experimental Validation of a 3D-Printed Embedded-Sensing Continuum Robot for Neurosurgery

by Donatella Dragone, Francesca Federica Donadio, Chiara Mirabelli, Carlo Cosentino, Francesco Amato, Paolo Zaffino, Maria Francesca Spadea, Domenico La Torre and Alessio Merola

Micromachines 2023, 14(9), 1743; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi14091743 - 06 Sep 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1205

Abstract

A minimally-invasive manipulator characterized by hyper-redundant kinematics and embedded sensing modules is presented in this work. The bending angles (tilt and pan) of the robot tip are controlled through tendon-driven actuation; the transmission of the actuation forces to the tip is based on a Bowden-cable solution integrating some channels for optical fibers. The viability of the real-time measurement of the feedback control variables, through optoelectronic acquisition, is evaluated for automated bending of the flexible endoscope and trajectory tracking of the tip angles. Indeed, unlike conventional catheters and cannulae adopted in neurosurgery, the proposed robot can extend the actuation and control of snake-like kinematic chains with embedded sensing solutions, enabling real-time measurement, robust and accurate control of curvature, and tip bending of continuum robots for the manipulation of cannulae and microsurgical instruments in neurosurgical procedures. A prototype of the manipulator with a length of 43 mm and a diameter of 5.5 mm has been realized via 3D printing. Moreover, a multiple regression model has been estimated through a novel experimental setup to predict the tip angles from measured outputs of the optoelectronic modules. The sensing and control performance has also been evaluated during tasks involving tip rotations. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Fundamentals and Applications of Micro-Nanorobotics)

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14 pages, 3573 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Automated Denudation of Oocytes

by Rongan Zhai, Guanqiao Shan, Changsheng Dai, Miao Hao, Junhui Zhu, Changhai Ru and Yu Sun

Micromachines 2022, 13(8), 1301; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi13081301 - 12 Aug 2022

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 3745

Abstract

Denudation is a technique for removal of the cumulus cell mass from oocytes in clinical intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI). Manual oocyte denudation requires long training hours and stringent skills, but still suffers from low yield rate and denudation efficiency due to human fatigue and skill variations across operators. To address these limitations, this paper reports a robotic system for automated oocyte denudation. In this system, several key techniques are proposed, including a vision-based contact detection method for measuring the relative z position between the micropipette tip and the dish substrate, recognition of oocytes and the surrounding cumulus cells, automated calibration algorithm for eliminating the misalignment angle, and automated control of the flow rate based on the model of oocyte dynamics during micropipette aspiration and deposition. Experiments on mouse oocytes demonstrated that the robotic denudation system achieved a high yield rate of 97.0 ± 2.8% and denudation efficiency of 95.0 ± 0.8%. Additionally, oocytes denuded by the robotic system showed comparable fertilization rate and developmental competence compared with manual denudation. Our robotic denudation system represents one step towards the automation and standardization of ICSI procedures. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Fundamentals and Applications of Micro-Nanorobotics)

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20 pages, 4707 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Dual-Arm Robot Trajectory Planning Based on Deep Reinforcement Learning under Complex Environment

by Wanxing Tang, Chuang Cheng, Haiping Ai and Li Chen

Micromachines 2022, 13(4), 564; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi13040564 - 31 Mar 2022

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 3222

Abstract

In this article, the trajectory planning of the two manipulators of the dual-arm robot is studied to approach the patient in a complex environment with deep reinforcement learning algorithms. The shape of the human body and bed is complex which may lead to the collision between the human and the robot. Because the sparse reward the robot obtains from the environment may not support the robot to accomplish the task, a neural network is trained to control the manipulators of the robot to prepare to hold the patient up by using a proximal policy optimization algorithm with a continuous reward function. Firstly, considering the realistic scene, the 3D simulation environment is built to conduct the research. Secondly, inspired by the idea of the artificial potential field, a new reward and punishment function was proposed to help the robot obtain enough rewards to explore the environment. The function is consisting of four parts which include the reward guidance function, collision detection, obstacle avoidance function, and time function. Where the reward guidance function is used to guide the robot to approach the targets to hold the patient, the collision detection and obstacle avoidance function are complementary to each other and are used to avoid obstacles, and the time function is used to reduce the number of training episode. Finally, after the robot is trained to reach the targets, the training results are analyzed. Compared with the DDPG algorithm, the PPO algorithm reduces about 4 million steps for training to converge. Moreover, compared with the other reward and punishment functions, the function used in this paper will obtain many more rewards at the same training time. Apart from that, it will take much less time to converge, and the episode length will be shorter; so, the advantage of the algorithm used in this paper is verified. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Fundamentals and Applications of Micro-Nanorobotics)

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21 pages, 7177 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Different Modes of Low-Frequency Focused Ultrasound-Mediated Attenuation of Epilepsy Based on the Topological Theory

by Minjian Zhang, Bo Li, Yafei Liu, Rongyu Tang, Yiran Lang, Qiang Huang and Jiping He

Micromachines 2021, 12(8), 1001; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi12081001 - 23 Aug 2021

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2797

Abstract

Epilepsy is common brain dysfunction, where abnormal synchronized activities can be observed across multiple brain regions. Low-frequency focused pulsed ultrasound has been proven to modulate the epileptic brain network. In this study, we used two modes of low-intensity focused ultrasound (pulsed-wave and continuous-wave) to sonicate the brains of KA-induced epileptic rats, analyzed the EEG functional brain connections to explore their respective effect on the epileptic brain network, and discuss the mechanism of ultrasound neuromodulation. By comparing the brain network characteristics before and after sonication, we found that two modes of ultrasound both significantly affected the functional brain network, especially in the low-frequency band below 12 Hz. After two modes of sonication, the power spectral density of the EEG signals and the connection strength of the brain network were significantly reduced, but there was no significant difference between the two modes. Our results indicated that the ultrasound neuromodulation could effectively regulate the epileptic brain connections. The ultrasound-mediated attenuation of epilepsy was independent of modes of ultrasound. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Fundamentals and Applications of Micro-Nanorobotics)

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16 pages, 1724 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Robust Orthogonal-View 2-D/3-D Rigid Registration for Minimally Invasive Surgery

by Zhou An, Honghai Ma, Lilu Liu, Yue Wang, Haojian Lu, Chunlin Zhou, Rong Xiong and Jian Hu

Micromachines 2021, 12(7), 844; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi12070844 - 20 Jul 2021

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2350

Abstract

Intra-operative target pose estimation is fundamental in minimally invasive surgery (MIS) to guiding surgical robots. This task can be fulfilled by the 2-D/3-D rigid registration, which aligns the anatomical structures between intra-operative 2-D fluoroscopy and the pre-operative 3-D computed tomography (CT) with annotated target information. Although this technique has been researched for decades, it is still challenging to achieve accuracy, robustness and efficiency simultaneously. In this paper, a novel orthogonal-view 2-D/3-D rigid registration framework is proposed which combines the dense reconstruction based on deep learning and the GPU-accelerated 3-D/3-D rigid registration. First, we employ the X2CT-GAN to reconstruct a target CT from two orthogonal fluoroscopy images. After that, the generated target CT and pre-operative CT are input into the 3-D/3-D rigid registration part, which potentially needs a few iterations to converge the global optima. For further efficiency improvement, we make the 3-D/3-D registration algorithm parallel and apply a GPU to accelerate this part. For evaluation, a novel tool is employed to preprocess the public head CT dataset CQ500 and a CT-DRR dataset is presented as the benchmark. The proposed method achieves 1.65 ± 1.41 mm in mean target registration error(mTRE), 20% in the gross failure rate(GFR) and 1.8 s in running time. Our method outperforms the state-of-the-art methods in most test cases. It is promising to apply the proposed method in localization and nano manipulation of micro surgical robot for highly precise MIS. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Fundamentals and Applications of Micro-Nanorobotics)

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12 pages, 2577 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperEditor’s ChoiceCommunication

Magnetic-Propelled Janus Yeast Cell Robots Functionalized with Metal-Organic Frameworks for Mycotoxin Decontamination

by Dongdong Lu, Songsong Tang, Yangyang Li, Zhaoqing Cong, Xueji Zhang and Song Wu

Micromachines 2021, 12(7), 797; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi12070797 - 05 Jul 2021

Cited by 7 | Viewed by 2973

Abstract

Cell robots that transform natural cells into active platforms hold great potential to enrich the biomedical prospects of artificial microrobots. Here, we present Janus yeast cell microrobots (JYC-robots) prepared by asymmetrically coating Fe₃O₄ nanoparticles (NPs) and subsequent in situ growth of zeolitic imidazolate framework-67 (ZIF-67) on the surface of yeast cells. The magnetic actuation relies on the Fe₃O₄ NPs wrapping. As the compositions of cell robots, the cell wall with abundant polysaccharide coupling with porous and oxidative ZIF-67 can concurrently remove mycotoxin (e.g., zearalenone (ZEN)). The magnetic propulsion accelerates the decontamination efficiency of JYC-robots against ZEN. Although yeast cells with fully coating of Fe₃O₄ NPs and ZIF-67 (FC-yeasts) show faster movement than JYC-robots, higher toxin-removal efficacy is observed for JYC-robots compared with that of FC-yeasts, reflecting the vital factor of the yeast cell wall in removing mycotoxin. Such design with Janus modification of magnetic NPs (MNPs) and entire coating of ZIF-67 generates active cell robot platform capable of fuel-free propulsion and enhanced detoxification, offering a new formation to develop cell-based robotics system for environmental remediation. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Fundamentals and Applications of Micro-Nanorobotics)

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Review

Jump to: Research

15 pages, 1765 KiB

Open AccessReview

Microneedles in Drug Delivery: Progress and Challenges

by Muhammet Avcil and Ayhan Çelik

Micromachines 2021, 12(11), 1321; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi12111321 - 28 Oct 2021

Cited by 71 | Viewed by 7816

Abstract

In recent years, an innovative transdermal delivery technology has attracted great interest for its ability to distribute therapeutics and cosmeceuticals for several applications, including vaccines, drugs, and biomolecules for skin-related problems. The advantages of microneedle patch technology have been extensively evaluated in the latest literature; hence, the academic publications in this area are rising exponentially. Like all new technologies, the microneedle patch application has great potential but is not without limitations. In this review, we will discuss the possible limitations by highlighting the areas where a great deal of improvements are required. Emphasising these concerns early on should help scientists and technologists to address the matters in a timely fashion and to use their resources wisely. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Fundamentals and Applications of Micro-Nanorobotics)

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