Shuguo Wang

Steerable catheters in minimally invasive vascular surgery

Remote‐controlled catheter navigation systems have recently been introduced into minimally invasive vascular surgery and some of them have already been applied in clinical practice. Steerable catheters with improved manoeuvrability play an important role in these innovations for conventional catheterization.

Design and development of a portable exoskeleton based CPM machine for rehabilitation of hand injuries

Human hand is easy to be injured. As physical rehabilitation therapy after a hand operation always takes a long time, the curative effect gets worse and the social and financial hardship with physical deterioration can be caused. A CPM machine is a mechanism based on the rehabilitation theory of continuous passive motion (CPM). To improve rehabilitation results and validate the CPM theory we have developed a portable exoskeleton based CPM machine. The device can be easily attached and also be adjusted to fit different hand sizes. And during the fingers flexion and extension motion the machine can always exert perpendicular forces on the finger phalanges. It can achieve the precise control of scope, force and speed of the moving fingers. Finally based on its mechanical structure, a kinematic validation and simulation including kinematic simulation and dynamic simulation have been carried out.

Skeleton-based active catheter navigation.

The emergence of the active catheter has prompted the development of catheterization in minimally invasive surgery. However, it is still operated using only the physicians vision; information supplied by the guiding image and tracking sensors has not been fully utilized.

Development of a multi-DOF exoskeleton based machine for injured fingers

In order to offer a method for the rehabilitation of injured fingers and a means of quantitative detection and evaluation, an exoskeleton based continuous passive motion (CPM) machine is presented in this paper. Corresponding to each finger of human hand, the CPM machine has 4 degrees of freedom (DOF) driven by two DC motors. The joint force and position sensors are all integrated into the machine. The device can be easily attached and also be adjusted to fit different hand sizes. During the injured fingerpsilas flexion and extension motion the machine can always exert perpendicular forces on the finger phalanges, meanwhile it can achieve the precise control of scope, force and speed of the moving fingers. In order to control the CPM machine, we have also designed an embedded control system based on S3C2410 (a kind of 32-bit RISC microprocessor). The whole system is open-ended for new functions and applications. The function modularization method provides a new thinking of design for the control system.

A wheel-leg hybrid wall climbing robot with multi-surface locomotion ability

A prototype of wheel-leg hybrid mobile robot that can move on both ground and wall surfaces is presented, which could be used for special tasks such as rescue, inspection, surveillance and reconnaissance. The wheel-leg hybrid locomotion mechanism enable the robot to achieve quick motion on wall surface, as well as obstacle-spanning on wall surfaces and smooth wall-to-wall transitions. And the wheel lifting mechanism enables the robot to move on both wall surfaces and ground. The robot is composed of a base body and a mechanical leg with 3 DOF. The base body is a big flat suction cup with three-wheeled locomotion mechanism inside, and there is a small flat sucker in the end of the mechanical leg. The new designed chamber seal has simple structure and has steady and reliable performance. A distributed embedded control system is also described which enable the robot operating manually and semi-autonomously in wheeled motion mode or legged motion mode. Kinematics model of the robot is established to analyze the robots motion on the wall. And the locomotion gait of the robot is discussed. Experiments show that the robot can adhere on wall surface and realize the basic movements.

Development of a wall climbing robot with wheel-leg hybrid locomotion mechanism

A novel prototype of self-contained wall-climbing robot used for special tasks such as rescue, inspection, surveillance and reconnaissance is developed. The wheel-leg hybrid locomotion mechanism enable the robot to achieve quick motion on wall surface, as well as obstacle- spanning on wall surfaces and smooth wall-to-wall transitions. The robot is composed of a base body and a mechanical leg with 3 DOF. The base body is a big flat suction cup with three-wheeled locomotion mechanism inside, and there is a small flat sucker in the end of the mechanical leg. The new designed chamber seal has simple structure and has steady and reliable performance. A distributed embedded control system is also described which enable the robot operating manually and semi-autonomously in wheeled motion mode or legged motion mode. Kinematics model of the robot is established to analyze the robots motion on the wall. And the locomotion gait of the robot is discussed. Safety analysis of the robot on vertical surfaces shows the robots reliable adhesion ability to working on wall surfaces.

Trajectory tracking and point stabilization of noholonomic mobile robot

In this paper, a mixed controller for solving the trajectory tracking and point stabilization problems of a mobile robot is presented, applying the integration of backstepping technique and neural dynamics. By introducing a virtual target point, the whole motion process is divided into two parts. The first one is employed to realize tracking control and the other one is adopted to implement point stabilization. Each part produces a feedback control law by using backstepping technique. Moreover, to solve the speed and torque jump problems and make the controller generate smooth and continuous signal when controllers switch, the neural dynamics model is integrated into the backstepping. The stability of the proposed control system is analyzed by using Lyapunov theory. Finally, simulation results are given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme.

Computer‐assisted automatic localization of the human pedunculopontine nucleus in T1‐weighted MR images: a preliminary study

The pedunculopontine nucleus (PPN) is a new promising target of deep brain stimulation (DBS) for the treatment of Parkinsons disease. This study was to develop a method of computer‐assisted automatic localization of the PPN in T1‐weighted MR images.

Research on sensing and measuring system for a hand rehabilitation robot

This paper mainly discusses the sensing and measuring system for a hand rehabilitation robot. Through analyzing the whole system structure and rehabilitation strategies of hand rehabilitation robot, a sensing and measuring system scheme is designed. By integrating joint position sensors and force sensors, the robot can perceive the joint angle information of patients finger and the interaction force with the robot in real time. The position sensors system which has the feature of separate incremental encoders and potentiometers but integrating information they produce, can compress the space occupied and provide higher measuring accuracy; By means of using pairs of thin-film flexible pressure sensors for acquiring interaction force, the robot system possess higher measuring accuracy and a compact structure. Experimental results show the feasibility and effectiveness of the sensing and measuring system of the hand rehabilitation robot.

A Navigation Robot with Reconfigurable Chassis and Bionic Wheel

A mobile robot with reconfigurable locomotion chassis and bionic reconfigurable wheel rim is introduced. The configuration of its control system based on network-driven DC motors and PC 104 computer and relevant on-board technology are presented. The result shows that the mobile robot is a better test platform for diversified task of mobile robot navigation and localization in uncertain environment