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Item Smart capsules for sensing and sampling the gut: status, challenges and prospects(BMJ Publishing Group Ltd on behalf of the British Society of Gastroenterology, 2024-01) Rehan M; Al-Bahadly I; Thomas DG; Young W; Cheng LK; Avci ESmart capsules are developing at a tremendous pace with a promise to become effective clinical tools for the diagnosis and monitoring of gut health. This field emerged in the early 2000s with a successful translation of an endoscopic capsule from laboratory prototype to a commercially viable clinical device. Recently, this field has accelerated and expanded into various domains beyond imaging, including the measurement of gut physiological parameters such as temperature, pH, pressure and gas sensing, and the development of sampling devices for better insight into gut health. In this review, the status of smart capsules for sensing gut parameters is presented to provide a broad picture of these state-of-the-art devices while focusing on the technical and clinical challenges the devices need to overcome to realise their value in clinical settings. Smart capsules are developed to perform sensing operations throughout the length of the gut to better understand the body's response under various conditions. Furthermore, the prospects of such sensing devices are discussed that might help readers, especially health practitioners, to adapt to this inevitable transformation in healthcare. As a compliment to gut sensing smart capsules, significant amount of effort has been put into the development of robotic capsules to collect tissue biopsy and gut microbiota samples to perform in-depth analysis after capsule retrieval which will be a game changer for gut health diagnosis, and this advancement is also covered in this review. The expansion of smart capsules to robotic capsules for gut microbiota collection has opened new avenues for research with a great promise to revolutionise human health diagnosis, monitoring and intervention.Item Optical microlever assisted DNA stretching(Optica Publishing Group, 2021-08-02) Andrew P-K; Raudsepp A; Fan D; Staufer U; Williams MAK; Avci EOptical microrobotics is an emerging field that has the potential to improve upon current optical tweezer studies through avenues such as limiting the exposure of biological molecules of interest to laser radiation and overcoming the current limitations of low forces and unwanted interactions between nearby optical traps. However, optical microrobotics has been historically limited to rigid, single-body end-effectors rather than even simple machines, limiting the tasks that can be performed. Additionally, while multi-body machines such as microlevers exist in the literature, they have not yet been successfully demonstrated as tools for biological studies, such as molecule stretching. In this work we have taken a step towards moving the field forward by developing two types of microlever, produced using two-photon absorption polymerisation, to perform the first lever-assisted stretches of double-stranded DNA. The aim of the work is to provide a proof of concept for using optical micromachines for single molecule studies. Both styles of microlevers were successfully used to stretch single duplexes of DNA, and the results were analysed with the worm-like chain model to show that they were in good agreement.Item Autonomous anthromorphic robotic system with low-cost colour sensors to monitor plant growth in a laboratory(In-Tech, 2012) Sen Gupta G; Seelye M; Seelye J; Bailey D; Dutta, AItem The development of optical nanomachines for studying molecules : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Mechatronics Engineering at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand(Massey University, 2022) Andrew, Philippa-KateOptical tweezers have been used for a number of applications since their invention by Arthur Ashkin in 1986, and are particularly useful for biological and biophysical studies due to their exceptionally high spatial and force-based resolution. The same intense laser focus that allows light to be used as a tool for micro-nanoscale manipulation also has the potential to damage the objects being studied, and the extremely high force resolution is coupled with the limitation of very low forces. There is potential to overcome these drawbacks of optical manipulation through making use of another laser based technique: two-photon absorption polymerisation (TPAP). This thesis has brought these together to demonstrate the uses of optical nanomachines as helpful tools for optical tweezer studies. The project was highly interdisciplinary, concerning the intersection of optical trapping, 3D micromachine design and development, and DNA stretching. The thesis was based around the strategy of first developing microrobots and demonstrating their manipulation using optical tweezers, then adjusting the design for specific applications. Microlevers were developed for lever-assisted DNA stretching and amplification of optical forces. The influence of design features and TPAP parameters on microlever functionality was investigated; particularly the influence of overlapping area and presence of supports, and the effects of differently shaped "trapping handles". These features were important as lever functionality was tested in solutions of different ionic strength, and stable trapping of the levers was required for force amplification. DNA stretching was chosen as a target application for distanced-application of optical forces due to its status as a well-known and characterised example of single-molecule studies with optical tweezers. Amplification of optical forces was also seen as an application that could demonstrate the utility of optical micromachines, and microlevers with a 2:1 lever arm ratio were developed to produce consistent, two-fold amplification of optical forces, in a first for unsupported, pin-jointed optical microrobotics. It is hoped that in the future fully-remote, micromachine-assisted studies will extend optical tweezer studies of laser-sensitive subjects, as well as increasing the forces that can be applied, and the results obtained in this thesis are encouraging. All in all, the thesis confirms the potential of optical micromachines for aiding studies using optical tweezers, and demonstrates concrete progress in both design and application.Item Robotic capsule for sampling gut microbiota : design, development and evaluation : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Engineering at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand(Massey University, 2022) Rehan, MuhammadIn this research, a pill-sized robotic capsule was developed that can collect gut microbiota both from the gut lumen (capsule surroundings) and intestinal wall (mucosa layer). Initially, the peristaltic forces exerted on the robotic capsule inside the gut were quantified so the working environment of the capsule could be understood. Secondly, a unique sampling mechanism was developed that could gently scrape the content from the gut lining and could provide a full length assessment of microbiota after capsule retrieval. Thirdly, the design of shape memory alloy (SMA) spring actuator was realised that could apply sufficient force to overcome peristaltic and frictional forces for sample collection at the target-site. Furthermore, an actuation system was devised by tackling the high-drain current requirement of SMAs. Fourthly, a sealing mechanism was developed to secure the collected sample from cross contamination and to assure successful encapsulation. Fifthly, the robotic capsule was rigorously tested in various in vitro simulators replicating the gut environment and a dedicated gut simulator that mimicked the in-vivo environment to ensure successful and safe travel of the capsule along the gastrointestinal tract. Finally, an in vitro experimental setup that kept an intestine alive for 6 hours was used to optimise the sample collection process. The robotic capsule collected sufficient quantities of sample (more than 100 µL) for microbiota analysis from living intestines of three animal species (pig, sheep and cow) during the trials. The study of gut microbiota is gaining increasing attention due to its direct impact on human health. Gut microbiota can provide comprehensive information about the health of a host, and it can help in the early diagnosis of diseases like cancer, diabetes, obesity, etc. The robotic capsule prototype, developed in this work, has a potential to become a vital apparatus for clinicians and scientists to sample human and animal gut in the future.Item Low latency vision-based control for robotics : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Engineering in Mechatronics at Massey University, Manawatu, New Zealand(Massey University, 2018) Lues, JoshuaIn this work, the problem of controlling a high-speed dynamic tracking and interception system using computer vision as the measurement unit was explored. High-speed control systems alone present many challenges, and these challenges are compounded when combined with the high volume of data processing required by computer vision systems. A semi-automated foosball table was chosen as the test-bed system because it combines all the challenges associated with a vision-based control system into a single platform. While computer vision is extremely useful and can solve many problems, it can also introduce many problems such as latency, the need for lens and spatial calibration, potentially high power consumption, and high cost. The objective of this work is to explore how to implement computer vision as the measurement unit in a high-speed controller, while minimising latencies caused by the vision itself, communication interfaces, data processing/strategy, instruction execution, and actuator control. Another objective was to implement the solution in one low-latency, low power, low cost embedded system. A field programmable gate array (FPGA) system on chip (SoC), which combines programmable digital logic with a dual core ARM processor (HPS) on the same chip, was hypothesised to be capable of running the described vision-based control system. The FPGA was used to perform streamed image pre-processing, concurrent stepper motor control and provide communication channels for user input, while the HPS performed the lens distortion mapping, intercept calculation and “strategy” control tasks, as well as controlling overall function of the system. Individual vision systems were compared for latency performance. Interception performance of the semi-automated foosball table was then tested for straight, moderate-speed shots with limited view time, and latency was artificially added to the system and the interception results for the same, centre-field shot tested with a variety of different added latencies. The FPGA based system performed the best in both steady-state latency, and novel event detection latency tests. The developed stepper motor control modules performed well in terms of speed, smoothness, resource consumption, and versatility. They are capable of constant velocity, constant acceleration and variable acceleration profiles, as well as being completely parameterisable. The interception modules on the foosball table achieved a 100% interception rate, with a confidence interval of 95%, and reliability of 98.4%. As artificial latency was added to the system, the performance dropped in terms of overall number of successful intercepts. The decrease in performance was roughly linear with a 60% in reduction in performance caused by 100 ms of added latency. Performance dropped to 0% successful intercepts when 166 ms of latency was added. The implications of this work are that FPGA SoC technology may, in future, enable computer vision to be used as a general purpose, high-speed measurement system for a wide variety of control problems.Item Distributed intelligent robotics : research & development in fault-tolerant control and size/position identification : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Engineering in Computer Systems Engineering at Massey University(Massey University, 2002) Subramaniam, Karthikeya KrishnaThis thesis presents research conducted on aspects of intelligent robotic systems. In the past two decades, robotics has become one of the most rapidly expanding and developing fields of science. Robotics can be considered as the science of using artificial intelligence in the physical world. Many areas of study exist in robotics. Among these, two fields that are of paramount importance in real world applications are fault tolerance, and sensory systems. Fault tolerance is necessary since a robot in the real world could encounter internal faults, and may also have to continue functioning under adverse conditions. Sensory mechanisms are essential since a robot will possess little intelligence if it does not have methods of acquiring information about its environment. Both these fields are researched in this thesis. In particular, emphasis is placed on distributed intelligent autonomous systems. Experiments and simulations have been conducted to investigate design for fault tolerance. A suitable platform was also chosen for an implementation of a visual system, as an example of a working sensory mechanism.Item Action-selection in RoboCup keepaway soccer : experimenting with player confidence : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Science in Computer Science at Massey University(Massey University, 2006) Neilson, Samara AnnThrough the investigation of collaborative multi-agent domains, in particular those of robot soccer and robot rescue, and the examination of many popular action-selection methodologies, this study identifies some of the issues surrounding entropy, action-selection and performance analysis. In order to address these issues, a meaningful method of on-field player evaluation, the confidence model, was first proposed then implemented as an action-selection policy. This model represented player skill through the use of percentages signifying relative strength and weakness and was implemented using a combination of ideas taken from Bayesian Theory. Neural Networks. Reinforcement Learning, Q-Learning and Potential Fields. Through the course of this study, the proposed confidence model action-selection methodology was thoroughly tested using the Keepaway Soccer Framework developed by Stone, Kuhlmann, Taylor and Liu and compared with the performance of its peers. Empirical test results were also presented, demonstrating both the viability and flexibility of this approach as a sound, homogeneous solution, for a team wishing to implement a quickly trainable performance analysis solution.Item Autonomous control of a humanoid soccer robot : development of tools and strategies using colour vision : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Engineering in Mechatronics at Massey University(Massey University, 2007) Rielly, BadenHumanoid robots research has been an ongoing area of development for researchers due to the benefits that humanoid robots present, whether for entertainment or industrial purposes because of their ability to move around in a human environment, mimic human movement and being aesthetically pleasing. The RoboCup is a competition designed to further the development of robotics, with the humanoid league being the forefront of the competition. A design for the robot platform to compete at an international level in the RoboCup competition will be developed. Along with the platform, tools are created to allow the robot to function autonomously, effectively and efficiently in this environment, primarily using colour vision as its main sensory input. By using a 'point and follow' approach to the robot control a simplistic A.I. was formed which enables the robot to complete the basic functionality of a striker of the ball. Mathematical models are then presented for the comparison of stereoscopic versus monoscopic vision, with the expansion on why monoscopic vision was chosen, due to the environment of the competition being known. A monoscopic depth perception mathematical model and algorithm is then developed, along with a ball trajectory algorithm to allow the robot to calculate a moving balls trajectory and react according to its motion path. Finally through analysis of the implementation of the constructed tools for the chosen platform, details on their effectiveness and their drawbacks are discussed.Item Multiple configuration shell-core structured robotic manipulator with interchangeable mechatronic joints : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Engineering in Mechatronics at Massey University, Turitea Campus, Palmerston North, New Zealand(Massey University, 2017) Janse van Vuuren, Jacques J PWith the increase of robotic technology utilised throughout industry, the need for skilled labour in this area has increased also. As a result, education dealing with robotics has grown at both the high-school and tertiary educational level. Despite the range of pedagogical robots currently on the market, there seems to be a low variety of these systems specifically related to the types of robotic manipulator arms popular for industrial applications. Furthermore, a fixed-arm system is limited to only serve as an educational supplement for that specific configuration and therefore cannot demonstrate more than one of the numerous industrial-type robotic arms. The Shell-Core structured robotic manipulator concept has been proposed to improve the quality and variety of available pedagogical robotic arm systems on the market. This is achieved by the reconfigurable nature of the concept, which incorporates shell and core structural units to make the construction of at least 5 mainstream industrial arms possible. The platform will be suitable, but not limited to use within the educational robotics industry at high-school and higher educational levels and may appeal to hobbyists. Later dubbed SMILE (Smart Manipulator with Interchangeable Links and Effectors), the system utilises core units to provide either rotational or linear actuation in a single plane. A variety of shell units are then implemented as the body of the robotic arm, serving as appropriate offsets to achieve the required configuration. A prototype consisting of a limited number of ‘building blocks’ was developed for proof-of-concept, found capable of achieving several of the proposed configurations. The outcome of this research is encouraging, with a Massey patent search confirming the unique features of the proposed concept. The prototype system is an economic, easy to implement, plug and play, and multiple-configuration robotic manipulator, suitable for various applications.
