In recent years, there has been an increase in the development of medical robots to enhance interventional MRI-guided therapies and operations. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) surgical robots are particularly attractive due to their ability to provide excellent soft-tissue contrast during these procedures. This paper describes a novel design for a tendon-driven gripper that utilizes four shape memory alloy (SMA) spring actuators and variable stiffness joints controlled by SMA coils for use in MRI surgical robot applications. The contact force of the gripper link is determined by the mechanical properties of the SMA spring actuators (SSA) and the angle of each linkage, and the joint stiffness can be adjusted by varying the electrical current applied to the SMA coil. To enhance the efficiency of the SSAs, a new cooling system using water has been proposed and implemented. To validate the effectiveness of our proposed gripper, we conducted three types of experiments, namely, a single SSA experiment, a single SMA coil experiment, and a whole gripper experiment. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed water-cooling system can effectively solve temperature issues of SMA, and the joint stiffness in the austenite state is higher than that in the martensite state. Moreover, our experiments show that the presented gripper is capable of grasping and holding objects of various shapes and weights.

A flexible surgical robot that can adjust its stiffness guarantees safe operation by satisfying both the high flexibility required when the robot approaches a surgical target and the more stiffness necessary for the end effector to perform surgical procedures. Therefore, this paper proposes a flexible surgical robot that consists of a central backbone, eight super-elastic wires as peripheral backbones, SMA springs, rubber tubes, and several disks. The inner diameter of the SMA springs that can be changed via their temperature creates a tightening force change to apply onto the eight backbone wires of the robot to adjust the overall stiffness of the robot. The simple structure is favorable for robot miniaturization. Frictional force and stiffness modulation experiments of the robot are performed. The results confirmed that the robot's stiffness was increased approximately 1.4 times between the martensite state and the austenite state of the SMA spring. The relationship model between the flexural rigidity of the robot and the frictional force between the SMA spring with the peripheral backbones is established. We compared the flexural rigidity values obtained from our model with those of the experimental result and confirmed that the model was valid.

A haptic interface based on electrical muscle stimulation (EMS) has huge potential in terms of usability and applicability compared with conventional haptic interfaces. This study analyzed the force response characteristics of forearm extensor muscles for EMS-based haptic rendering. We introduced a simplified mathematical model of the force response, which has been developed in the field of rehabilitation, and experimentally validated its feasibility for haptic applications. Two important features of the force response, namely the peak force and response time, with respect to the frequency and amplitude of the electrical stimulation were identified by investigating the experimental force response of the forearm extensor muscles. An exponential function was proposed to estimate the peak force with respect to the frequency and amplitude, and it was verified by comparing with the measured peak force. The response time characteristics were also examined with respect to the frequency and amplitude. A frequency-dependent tendency, i.e., an increase in response time with increasing frequency, was observed, whereas there was no correlation with the amplitude. The analysis of the force response characteristics with the application of the proposed force response model may help enhance the fidelity of EMS-based haptic rendering.

Wearable ground reaction force (GRF) measurement systems make it possible to measure the GRF in any environment, unlike a commercial force plate. When performing kinetic analysis with the GRF, measurement of multiaxial GRF is important for evaluating forward and lateral motion during natural gait. In this paper, we propose a bendable GRF measurement system that can measure biaxial (vertical and anterior-posterior) GRF without interrupting the natural gait. Eight custom small biaxial force sensors based on an optical sensing mechanism were installed in the proposed system. The interference between two axes on the custom sensor was minimized by the independent application of a cantilever structure for the two axes, and the hysteresis and repeatability of the custom sensor were investigated. After developing the system by the installation of force sensors, we found that the degree of flexibility of the developed system was comparable to that of regular shoes by investigating the forefoot bending stiffness. Finally, we compared vertical GRF (vGRF) and anterior-posterior GRF (apGRF) measured from the developed system and force plate at the same time when the six subjects walked, ran, and jumped on the force plate to evaluate the performance of the GRF measurement system.