Abstract
The vibro-impact capsule system has been studied extensively in the past decade because of its research challenges as a piecewise-smooth dynamical system and broad applications in engineering and healthcare technologies. This paper reports our team’s first attempt to scale down the prototype of the vibro-impact capsule to millimetre size, which is 26 mm in length and 11 mm in diameter, aiming for small-bowel endoscopy. Firstly, an existing mathematical model of the prototype and its mathematical formulation as a piecewise-smooth dynamical system are reviewed in order to carry out numerical optimisation for the prototype by means of path-following techniques. Our numerical analysis shows that the prototype can achieve a high progression speed up to 14.4 mm/s while avoiding the collision between the inner mass and the capsule which could lead to less propulsive force on the capsule so causing less discomfort on the patient. Secondly, the experimental rig and procedure for testing the prototype are introduced, and some preliminary experimental results are presented. Finally, experimental results are compared with the numerical results to validate the optimisation as well as the feasibility of the vibro-impact technique for the potential of a controllable endoscopic procedure.
Highlights
Inspired from inchworm’s locomotion, self-propelled mobile mechanisms driven by autogenous internal force and environmental resistance have attracted great attention from applied mathematicians, experimentalists and engineers because of their theoretical challenges as piecewise-smooth dynamical systems and broad applications in robotics, e.g. [1]
The present study in this paper is to report our recent progress on scaling down the prototype design of the vibro-impact capsule system to a standard dimension for gastrointestinal capsule endoscopy, which is 26 mm in length and 11 mm in diameter
This paper studied the optimisation of a vibrationdriven capsule robot for small-bowel endoscopy with respect to maximising its progression speed and minimising propulsive force through a numerical analysis and experimental investigation
Summary
Inspired from inchworm’s locomotion, self-propelled mobile mechanisms driven by autogenous internal force and environmental resistance have attracted great attention from applied mathematicians, experimentalists and engineers because of their theoretical challenges as piecewise-smooth dynamical systems and broad applications in robotics, e.g. [1]. The original idea of the self-propelled driving was pioneered by Chernousko [2, 3]. He proposed a twomass system to move progressively in a resistive medium when the two bodies performed periodic motions relative to each other [4]. By adopting this idea, the small body can be encapsulated in the large body and is excited in a controlled manner. Once the net force of their interaction is greater than the environmental resistance, rectilinear motion of the entire system can be obtained. To control the motion of the small body within such a limited traveling space is extremely challenging if the entire system is in millimetre or micro scale
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