Tetsushi Kamegawa

Development of rescue robotic systems for both daily and emergency use

In order to improve our life further, it is our inspiration to develop efficient robotic systems that can assist our usual need. The system that we are developing not only bring forward efficiency and credibility for daily usage or research platform, but when natural catastrophes like earthquake happens to strike, our robotic system is also capable of entering post-disaster sites and collect information about victim states that will be transmitted to the human rescuers, so that a more accurate and efficient rescue mission can be carried out. This paper presents the up-to-date information about our robotic system development of two different types of robots, the snake-type and the wheel-type.

Generation of trajectory using deflection force of needle in puncturing robot

In recent years, interventional radiology (IR) which is a medical procedure has been attracting considerable attention. Doctors can perform IR percutaneously while observing the fluoroscopic image, such as CT and MRI images, of patients. Therefore, this surgical method is less invasive. However, doctors are exposed to strong radiation in the case of under CTguidance. In order to overcome this problem, we developed remote-controlled IR assistance robot. The problem of the puncturing robot is inaccurate positioning of the tip of the needle, which causes the misdiagnosis and the complication, due to deflection of the needle and soft tissue. In this research, puncture method for minimizing the deflection force of the needle during puncture based on force sensor is proposed. First, the deflection of the needle was modeled as simply cantilever beam. Next, based on the deflection model, the target posture which minimizes the deflection force was derived. Finally, validity of the proposed method was verified based on the result of phantom puncture experiment.