Automation and cybernetics
Keywords Automation, Cybernetics, Research, Technological developments
Abstacts Reports and surveys are given of selected current research and development in systems and cybernetics. They include: RSI and the brain,Innovations, Biocybernetics, Mathematics and cybernetics, Molecular devices,Devices controlled by thought, Automation and cybernetics, VDU radiation.
Automation and cybernetics
1. Developing automation devices with muscles
A recent report describes how at the aerospace and engineering department in the University of Arizona, Tucson, USA, a prototype device with the name Biomorphic Robot with Distributed Power, or more simply called Birod, has now been completed. It is a basic model of the robot and consists of a 12-inch box which is supported by two legs in the front and two rear wheels that are situated at the back of the device. These are without any power. Already the prototype is to be updated and the latest model will have four legs which will allow the robot to walk over obstacles which would stop the motion of any wheeled vehicle. The model also has infra-red vision that will allow it to operate in the dark.
The support for the development of this robot is once again sourced in space research and space exploration. So many new robotic systems which will be of immense use in a wide variety of applications start as part of the space projects that are financed by the US Government agencies. In this case a walking robot which is to have artificial muscles instead of wheels is being developed for the purpose of exploring terrains in space. It is expected that this project will ultimately produce a robotic system that can be used to explore Mars and other planets that have been targeted for further investigations.
What is so unusual about this system is that the machine being developed will contain no gears or servos but will be propelled by using "shiny wires and springs", which the developers say will contract like muscles when electricity flows through them. They have been given the name "muscle wires", we are told,and are designed so that they respond in milliseconds and are able to carry 17,000 times their own weight.
The leader of the Birod research team at the University of Arizona, Professor Kumar Ramohalli, believes that Birods are much simpler than the robots that have emerged so far. He also says that the team aims at imitating biological systems so that for example the robots can produce bursts of power when required whilst retaining a capacity to recoup energy when at rest. In addition the fact that the design of Birods is not based on complex machinery makes them light and reliable.
A look at nature reveals the many creatures that have this make-up and show the characteristics desired by the designers of Birods. The team at Tucson cite the cat as such a creature that has the behaviour they seek for their new devices. It, they say, is able to lie around for much of the time and then, when required to chase or catch prey, it produces the short burst of energy it needs. Many other creatures are able to do the same and they act as models to be cloned in machine form to meet some of the needs of this new breed of robots.
The project continues with new prototypes envisaged until a final robotic system is achieved to meet the demanding role of the biomorphic robot in its exploratory work in space. There is no doubt of the role too, if a successful design is achieved, of a walking robot which has distributed power. Many earthly applications are also in dire need of such devices so that they too are equipped with artificial muscles instead of what is now regarded as the traditional wheeled design.
2. Automation takes over heart surgery
The Zeus robotic surgical system produced by the US company Computer Motion(Homesite-www.computermotion.com/) is now ready to perform heart surgery. Costing £500,000 it is already installed in US hospitals and in several centres in Europe. In the UK the first hospital to receive the system is the Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Trust Hospital. This hospital is a National Health Service (public hospital service) which is situated in West London. Work is in preparation there for the new robotic system to take over from the existing team. Perhaps a better way of reporting it, we are told, is to say that heart surgeons will control the robotic machinery that will enable the UK’s first coronary bypass to be performed by remote control.
The hospital spokesman says that the cardiac surgeon John Pepper will be the first to sit behind the controls when the Zeus system is used for heart bypasses. Mr Pepper believes that the system should improve the quality of the results and speed recovery. The system has tiny probes which can carry out operations by remote control through three small incisions in the patient’s chest. They are so tiny that they can move around in the smallest of spaces and,we are assured, without the fear, always present when a human operates, of a hand shaking. We are told that even the finest surgeon may produce a small tremor in his/her hands. In such a bypass operation a section of the artery from behind the breast bone is used to replace blocked arteries. To do this is a very challenging and precise job and it is now claimed that the robot system will eliminate previous human error.
The operator of the robotic system will wear a headset that shows a three-dimensional image of the heart and its surrounding tissue which is transmitted by a tiny camera and light which is introduced into the patient’s chest through a 5mm hole. The operator can use voice commands to make the camera move and show different views. The instruments to be used in the operation are held on the end of two equally fine tubes. These we are told are only about the thickness of an ordinary knitting needle. The instruments are placed into the chest cavity through the small incisions in the chest. They are controlled by the operating surgeon by two hand-grips which can be squeezed and moved to manipulate them. Both their position and movement are displayed on a screen in three dimensions by the controlling surgeon through the headset. It is important to realise that the operation is controlled by the surgeon who remains in full control throughout the operation. Patients need to know that, despite early media reports, this system does not perform any parts of its action in an automated mode.
Obviously this method of performing such operations has many advantages. The"keyhole" techniques will be of great benefit to the patient. This, it is said,spares the patient having the large incision normally needed for open heart surgery. This consequently eliminates the scar and reduces the pain, with the patient's recovery being accelerated. One feature of the system that most hospital managers will appreciate is that the whole operation can be completed by one surgeon without any assistants being at hand.
The need for such a robotic system becomes apparent. Mr Pepper of the UK hospital where the first operations will take place is reported as saying in The Times (London, June 1999) that:
Today if you went back to 100 bypass patients a year after the operation, you would find that in about eight of them the new artery was not working. What this means is that only 92 per cent of the bypass operations actually work. The robot should push that up to 98 per cent, I hope. The joins should be better. You could come into the hospital tomorrow, have the graft done the same day and leave the following day. You could be back at work within a fortnight. At present, it takes a couple of months, at least.
Computer Motion, the company that has developed the robotics system, say that the robot could be used on the "beating heart" where operations can be carried out which would eliminate the need to connect the patient to a heart-lung machine. Initially, in the UK applications the robot is to be used for bypass operations, and at the Royal Brompton Hospital in West London, on some 70 per cent of the workload, associated with them. Later uses are planned and include mitral valve replacements.
The experiences in the UK of hospitals undertaking keyhole surgery, before they were fully prepared to undertake it, must influence the way such a robotic system is introduced, not only here, but worldwide. It has been estimated at the Royal Brompton Hospital, UK, that it could take 70 hours to learn to use the machine. Mr Pepper, from that hospital, is said to have practised intensively the techniques that are required. He has learned, we are told, how to use the machine to make tiny stitches using a rubber glove that has been stretched over a frame. Then he moves to operating on a dead pig's heart and finally, on cadavers, before taking on a live patient. This is forecast to be at the end of this year. With this experience of learning the techniques for such operations the Royal Brompton Hospital plans to run courses to introduce and train UK surgeons in these new techniques.
