Unmanned ground vehicles are mostly wheeled, tracked, or legged. These locomotion mechanisms have a limited ability to traverse rough terrain and obstacles that are higher than the robot's center of mass. In order to improve the mobility of small robots it is necessary to expand the variety of their motion gaits. Jumping is one of nature's solutions to the challenge of mobility in difficult terrain. The desert locust is the model for the presented bio-inspired design of a jumping mechanism for a small mobile robot. The basic mechanism is similar to that of the semilunar process in the hind legs of the locust, and is based on the cocking of a torsional spring by wrapping a tendon-like wire around the shaft of a miniature motor. In this study we present the jumping mechanism design, and the manufacturing and performance analysis of two demonstrator prototypes. The most advanced jumping robot demonstrator is power autonomous, weighs 23 gr, and is capable of jumping to a height of 3.35 m, covering a distance of 1.37 m.

Robotics is widely seen as a key enabling technology for the society of tomorrow. We examine the role of robotics and intelligent medical devices in Intensive Care Medicine. Demographics predict that more elderly patients will need to be treated with fewer healthcare personnel, calling for innovations in ICU management. Robotics is a key enabling technology for this century and may help smoothing the foreseeable workload/manpower disparity in medicine. While robotics cannot replace the crucial human interactions in healthcare, it’s important to identify those areas where it can contribute in the near and foreseeable future. Studying the application of robotics in the ICU in a manner beneficial for patients and accepted by ICU team is therefore desirable. Financial sustainability is essential for the introduction of new technologies to the ICU. This study assesses the state-of-the-art of robotics in intensive care medicine and identifies opportunities for progress, using an observational approach in a teaching hospital ICU in combination with an indepth review of the literature and a survey of the market. Tasks potentially amenable to robotics are identified, their acceptability to patients and caregivers are examined and their quantitative contribution to future management of an intensive care unit is assessed.

We employ a piezoelectric transducer polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) for a new application: tracking the shape of a highly flexible cantilever. The sensor was attached to the bi-bellows, a pneumatic actuator developed by the authors. We demonstrate how the sensor responds to changes of the actuator's shape and discuss its limitations. The combination of an internal pressure sensor and a PVDF sensor enables measurements of external forces applied on the actuator, in addition to its self position.

Locusts are known for their ability to jump large distances to avoid predation. The jump also serves to launch the adult locust into the air in order to initiate flight. Various aspects of this important behavior have been studied extensively, from muscle physiology and biomechanics, to the energy storage systems involved in powering the jump, and more. Less well understood are the mechanisms participating in control of the jump trajectory. Here we utilise video monitoring and careful analysis of experimental directional jumps by adult desert locusts, together with dynamic computer simulation, in order to understand how the locusts control the direction and elevation of the jump, the residual angular velocities resulting from the jump and the timing of flapping-flight initiation. Our study confirms and expands early findings regarding the instrumental role of the initial body position and orientation. Both real-jump video analysis and simulations based on our expanded dynamical model demonstrate that the initial body coordinates of position (relative to the hind-legs ground-contact points) are dominant in predicting the jumps’ azimuth and elevation angles. We also report a strong linear correlation between the jumps’ pitch-angular-velocity and flight initiation timing, such that head downwards rotations lead to earlier wing opening. In addition to offering important insights into the bio-mechanical principles of locust jumping and flight initiation, the findings from this study will be used in designing future prototypes of a bio-inspired miniature jumping robot that will be employed in animal behaviour studies and environmental monitoring applications.

One of the most promising uses of miniature robots (MRs) in the biomedical field is performing local in situ diagnosis and therapy. Researchers have proposed numerous swimming methods utilizing various actuation principles. Herein, the different propulsion methods of MRs are evaluated by analyzing their scalability. Comparing various actuators, how their performance changes with size reduction is evaluated. The swimming of natural flagellar swimmers such as spermatozoa and nematodes is analyzed. It is found that although the fluidic regime and the geometry of these organisms change considerably, there are nondimensional features that remain almost constant; most importantly, the variation of the swimming velocity is much smaller than the variation of the Reynolds number in natural swimmers. Then, several methods of propulsion and actuation principles are compared, and it is found that among the swimming methods examined, the downscaling of a piezoelectrically driven vibrating elastic beam is the most favorable. Similar to natural swimmers, the swimming velocity of a piezoelectric active swimming tail does not depend on the geometry given that its power requirements can be met. This comparative approach tool aids in the development of future actuation methods for MRs and other active microsystems.