Advanced Intelligent Systems

Journal: Advanced Intelligent Systems

Abbreviation

Adv. Intell. Syst.

Publisher

Wiley-VCH

ISSN

2640-4567

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Publications 1 - 10 of 42

Teleoperated Magnetic Endoscopy: A Case Study and Perspective
Mesot, Alexandre; Mattille, Michelle; Boehler, Quentin; et al. (2025)
Advanced Intelligent Systems
Teleoperated robotic surgery is a rapidly growing field that promises to overcome geographical barriers and share expertise over long distances for a variety of minimally invasive procedures. A particularly promising technology for teleoperation is robotic magnetic navigation. In contrast to conventional surgical robots, a robotic magnetic navigation system generates external magnetic fields to safely and dexterously steer soft magnetic devices within the human body, enabling a versatile, economical, and accessible telesurgery platform for a variety of procedures. This perspective highlights the recent research efforts in robotic magnetic platforms for telesurgery and their translation to clinical settings in the context of endoscopic procedures. This discussion is supported by a case study performed at the Multi-Scale Medical Robotics Center in Hong Kong, where an in vivo gastroscopy in a porcine model is performed in tandem with two operators, alternating between a clinician controlling the procedure from the operating room in Hong Kong and a remote expert controlling the procedure from an operator console in Zurich. The achievements and challenges of this study highlight the capabilities and future potential of robotic magnetic navigation for telesurgery.
Magnetic Soft Robots for Targeted Bacterial Delivery and Enhanced Tumor Spheroid Disaggregation
Krauss, Tamara; Yasa, Öncay; Pustovalov, Vitaly; et al. (2025)
Advanced Intelligent Systems
Bacterial cancer therapy has great potential due to the mobility of bacteria within tissues and their active function in tumor localization. However, rapid uncontrolled division and off-target distribution of bacteria hinder their therapeutic use. To enhance the bacteria's targeting ability, bacteria are modified with magnetic materials that respond to external control signals. Nonetheless, this approach still tackles the rapid division of bacteria, their slow locomotion speed, and the control of their localization. Therefore, it is proposed to confine bacteria within a more extensive hydrogel-based platform that can be controlled with external stimuli. Specifically, a millimeter-scale magnetic soft robot incorporating probiotic bacteria is reported, which allows for the rapid, concentrated, and targeted delivery of living therapeutics with external alternating magnetic fields. In addition to remaining viable and multiplying within the hydrogel network, the bacteria escape from the robot after one hour and successfully disrupt colorectal tumor spheroids in vitro. Moreover, this robot demonstrates mobility across rough terrain made up of multiple materials and can target a polyp inside a phantom of the colon. Overall, this magnetic soft robotic platform provides a new strategy for a potential targeted cancer treatment based on the concentrated delivery of tens of millions of bacteria.
Crash 2 Squash: An Autonomous Drone for the Traversal of Narrow Passageways
Fabris, Amedeo; Aucone, Emanuele; Mintchev, Stefano (2022)
Advanced Intelligent Systems
Access and exploration of confined and cluttered spaces is a major challenge in search and rescue, maintenance of infrastructures, and environmental monitoring. However, existing drones can only access passageways that are 30% narrower of their size. Herein, a drone that can squeeze its way through arbitrarily long passages that are half its width is presented. This is achieved by developing a quadrotor that synergistically embodies a soft foldable frame, multimodal mobility, and autonomous navigation. The drone exploits visual perception to detect the entrance of the gap and aerial mobility to align and fly toward it. The entry is made possible by the soft design of the frame, which passively folds without breaking when the drone flies and then collides at a controlled speed with the entrance of the passage, i.e., the "crash to squash" entry maneuver. Once inside, the quadrotor uses terrestrial locomotion for the traversal. The mechanical design of the drone and the performance of the "crash to squash" entry maneuver in passageways of different sizes are experimentally characterized. Finally, the control method is validated by indoor autonomous flights.
Multistable Composite Laminate Grids as a Design Tool for Soft Reconfigurable Multirotors
Girardi, Luca; Risso, Giada; Pesaresi, Laura; et al. (2025)
Advanced Intelligent Systems
Adaptive-morphology multirotors exhibit superior versatility and task-specific performance compared to traditional multirotors owing to their functional morphological adaptability. However, a notable challenge lies in the contrasting requirements of locking each morphology for flight controllability and efficiency while permitting low-energy reconfiguration. A novel design approach is proposed for reconfigurable multirotors utilizing soft multistable composite laminate airframes. These airframes show kinematically determinate morphologies corresponding to multiple minima in their elastic potential energy landscape. By varying design parameters, the methodology allows for tuning the energy landscape characteristics governing each morphology's structural stability and reconfiguration energetics. The airframe, composed of multistable composite laminate grids, is optimized to maximize rigidity under flight loads and minimize reconfiguration work. The 130-g reconfigurable multirotor design demonstrates self-locking properties in an open and a folded configuration, enabling a 48% reduction in width-span without compromising stability during flight. Soft pneumatic actuators, actuated using a tethered compressed air supply, enable reversible reconfiguration on the ground between open and folded configurations. The design resolves the conflicting requirements of high-stiffness to lock each flight configuration and low-actuation work for reconfigurability. By exploiting soft yet multistable structures, the approach combines the stability observed in rigid-linked reconfigurable multirotors with the low-effort reconfigurability of soft multirotors, offering new methods for designing adaptive-morphology multirotors.
Design of a Quadruped Robot with Morphological Adaptation through Reconfigurable Sprawling Structure and Method
Yuan, Jiwei; Wang, Shuangjie; Wang, Bingcheng; et al. (2024)
Advanced Intelligent Systems
Morphological adaptation is crucial for animals and robots in navigating unstructured environments. In this article, a quadruped robot with a reconfigurable sprawl posture and posture transformation strategy is proposed, which can transform between different sprawl postures to cope with complex environments and adapt to a dorsal downward fall posture through reverse sprawling. First, the function and structure of the robot are described, including an analysis of the Hawken mechanism's endpoint trajectories and a regional examination of the robot leg's fundamental components, establishing a relationship between the trajectory characteristics and linkage length. Second, the robot posture transformation strategy is analysed, obtaining the geometric dimensional constraints and feasibility regions of the posture transformation. The posture transformation process is quantified, and the robot transformation gait and drive functions are designed. The robot gait and velocity regulation are implemented based on a neural control architecture. Finally, the robot's locomotion and posture transformation are tested using four high-speed cameras. The results show that the robot can crawl on an inclined surface and continue crawling in a dorsal downward posture post-fall. Additionally, the robot effectively navigates obstacles and narrow spaces after posture transformation.
Analog Implementation of a Spiking System for Performing Arithmetic Logic Operations on Mixed-Signal Neuromorphic Processors
Ayuso-Martinez, Alvaro; Casanueva-Morato, Daniel; Dominguez-Morales, Juan P.; et al. (2025)
Advanced Intelligent Systems
In recent years, physical limitations in the integration of transistors in computers have forced the search for low-computational-power alternatives in hardware design. Although doubts may arise regarding the limit of the relationship between performance and power consumption in computers, these disappear when considering the brain, which is one of the most efficient computing systems. In this way, bioinspired applications try to benefit from the low-power consumption present in the biological nervous system. Previous work has shown the feasibility of implementing spiking neural networks that operate in a Boolean manner on digital platforms, such as SpiNNaker, using basic logic gates and a spiking memory, which suggests the potential for constructing a low-power consumption spiking computer. This work takes a first step in the implementation of a spiking central processing unit by developing an arithmetic logic unit, which is an essential block for instruction execution, demonstrating its correct operation on Dynap-SE1. The results confirm the feasibility of using this Boolean approach on this platform, despite certain limitations in the number of inputs and operating frequencies of the blocks, and pave the way for the construction of a spiking computer.
A Review of Soft Microrobots: Material, Fabrication, and Actuation
Ye, Min; Zhou, Yan; Zhao, Hongyu; et al. (2023)
Advanced Intelligent Systems
Microrobots have shown great potential in many applications, such as non-invasive surgery, tissue engineering, precision medicine, and environmental remediation. Within the past decade, soft microrobot has become one of the important branches. It is aimed to create soft and deformable microrobots with high bioaffinity, which can perform complex tasks noninvasively in inaccessible small spaces in the body. Herein, the latest research progress of soft microrobots regarding the three cornerstones of this field is reviewed: material, fabrication, and actuation. First, various materials that are used for the fabrication of soft microrobots are summarized, and their characteristics and functions are discussed. Second, various fabrication methods of soft microrobots are introduced, and their applicability to different materials is discussed. Third, the actuation methods of soft microrobots are discussed, as well as their pros, cons, and adaptability. Moreover, the outstanding behaviors of soft microrobots in biomedical and environmental applications are introduced with some typical examples published recently. Finally, current clinical use challenges of soft microrobots are pointed out, and their intelligentization is proposed and discussed for further innovative development.
Enhancing Sensitivity across Scales with Highly Sensitive Hall Effect-Based Auxetic Tactile Sensors
Yun, Youngheon; Lee, Dongchan; Lee, Soyeon; et al. (2025)
Advanced Intelligent Systems
The research addresses the limitations inherent in conventional Hall effect-based tactile sensors, particularly their restricted sensitivity by introducing an innovative metastructure. Through meticulous finite element analysis optimization, the Hall effect-based auxetic tactile sensor (HEATS), featuring a rotating square plate configuration as the most effective auxetic pattern to enhance sensitivity, is developed. Experimental validation demonstrates significant sensitivity enhancements across a wide sensing range. HEATS exhibits a remarkable 20-fold and 10-fold improvement at tensile rates of 0.9% and 30%, respectively, compared to non-auxetic sensors. Furthermore, comprehensive testing demonstrates HEATS' exceptional precision in detecting various tactile stimuli, including muscle movements and joint angles. With its unparalleled accuracy and adaptability, HEATS offers vast potential applications in human-machine and human-robot interaction, where subtle tactile communication is a prerequisite.
Robotic Environmental Monitoring Using Gelatin Hydrogels as a Biodegradable Adhesive
Geckeler, Christian; Heinrich, Sophia; Mintchev, Stefano (2025)
Advanced Intelligent Systems
Scalable data collection from challenging locations, such as forests or bridges, is essential for biodiversity and environmental monitoring, as well as infrastructure and industrial inspection. Robots can collect this data, by placing sensors with uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs), perching UAVs, or climbing robots. All require adhesion to substrates with varying roughnesses, from tree bark to concrete and glass. Unfortunately, common adhesion methods are specialized for specific substrates, don’t generalize to different surfaces, or leave behind harmful residue. This work presents the novel use of gelatin-based hydrogels as biodegradable and water-soluble adhesives for reversible adhesion to different surfaces for robotic environmental monitoring. The hydrogel adheres through heating, attaching, and cooling. The hydrogel is released by heating again, and any residue can be washed away with water. To correctly dimension the adhesive, factors affecting the maximum pull-off force are experimentally characterized. The versatility of the adhesive is shown through adhesion to different surfaces. Only 0.1 g is shown to support at least 20 N. Finally, the adhesion method is validated on three robotic monitoring applications: sensor placement, UAV perching, and a climbing robot. These tests demonstrate the utility of biodegradable gelatin hydrogels as adhesives for robotic monitoring applications in natural and industrial settings.
Magnetic Hair Tactile Sensor for Directional Pressure Detection
Meier, Yuki A.; Duhr, Pierre; Mordarski, Marcel; et al. (2024)
Advanced Intelligent Systems
Tactile sensing in the human body is achieved via the skin. This has inspired the fabrication of synthetic skins with pressure sensors for potential applications in robotics, bio-medicine, and human-machine interfaces. Tactile sensors based on magnetic elements are promising as they provide high sensitivity and a wide dynamic range. However, current magnetic tactile sensors mostly detect pressures of solid objects and operate at relatively high forces about 100 mN. Herein, these limitations are addressed by manufacturing soft, stretchable, and hair-like structures that are permanently magnetized to achieve high-resolution, cost-effective, and high-resolution pressure sensing. Combining these hair-like structures with advances in 3D magnetic-field measurements allows us to monitor directional tactile pressures without solid contact. To prove the concept of this technology, a bio-inspired soft device is built with a hairy structure that senses and reports environmental mechanical stresses, similar to that of human skin. Simple self-assembly of the soft magnetic hair structure makes our approach easy to scale for large-area applications.

Publications 1 - 10 of 42

Journal: Advanced Intelligent Systems

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