Project Spirits
Medical robots from the printer
Five international research teams are developing a robot for the tumor therapy of the future. Although it consists of dozens of components, joints and actuators with different material properties, it can be produced in a single process step using a 3D printer.
Just press a button and the 3D printer does the rest automatically. Similar to an inkjet printer, liquid is sprayed onto a surface. However, the Polyjet printer uses plastic instead of different colors: the nozzles can apply two different polymer solutions individually or mixed with pinpoint accuracy. UV light cures the plastics before the next layer is applied. This creates a medical robot layer by layer.
Once development is complete, the robot will assist doctors in taking tissue samples and in thermal tumor treatment. "Positioning a needle or probe during a minimally invasive procedure like this is a particularly difficult task, as the doctor can best orientate himself with the help of computer tomography or MRI images - and that means working while the patient is lying in a narrow tube. There is hardly any freedom of movement," explains Marius Siegfarth from the Project Group for Automation in Medicine and Biotechnology (PAMB) of Fraunhofer IPA at the Mannheim Medical Faculty of Heidelberg University.
Robot goes into the tube with the patient
The robot, which his team is developing together with four other research groups from Germany, France and Switzerland in the Spirits project, is so small and light that it can be pushed into the tube together with the patient. It can be controlled from the outside using hydraulics - the doctor can therefore sit a few meters away and even in another room, where he is protected from radiation in the event of a CT scan.
The abbreviation Spirits stands for Smart Printed Interactive Robots for Interventional Therapy and Surgery. "The challenge of the project was to develop a design that can be produced in a single step using a polyjet printer, but at the same time consists of fully functional components - such as swivel joints with hydraulic actuators and a drive for the needle feed. All of these components have different material properties," explains Siegfarth.
First prototypes
At the Institut national des sciences appliquées de Strasbourg, INSA, where the Spirits project is being coordinated, the Polyjet is already printing the first prototypes. These have lever arms that are connected via joints. They can be used to rotate a needle around the penetration point in all spatial directions. The drive is provided by a hydraulic system developed by PAMB researchers: tiny tubes with diameters of four millimeters, seals and pistons. The special thing about it is that the pistons could be designed using 3D manufacturing technology so that the hydraulic pressure acts on the seal and reinforces its effect.
Initial tests show that the hydraulic drive from the 3D printer works. Further components will be integrated into the prototype over the next few months: the intelligent needle with force sensor, for example, a development by the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne, EPFL. The feed mechanism for the needle was developed by INSA researchers.
Added to this is the "haptic feedback". It transforms the measurement results of the force sensor into resistances that the doctor feels when he guides the needle through softer or harder tissue. This feedback system was developed by researchers at Furtwangen University. And at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland FHNW, printable, non-magnetizable metal components are currently being developed for the next generation of prototypes.
The first fully printed medical robot is to be tested on dummies before the end of 2019. With a total budget of 1.67 million euros, Spirits is co-financed by the INTERREG V Upper Rhine program with 436,201 euros from the ERDF (European Regional Development Fund). As part of the "Offensive Sciences" initiative, which finances top cross-border research projects, the project is also supported by regional and cantonal partners. The project is co-financed by the Greater Region East, the state of Baden-Württemberg, the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, the Swiss Confederation, the canton of Aargau, the canton of Basel-Stadt and the canton of Basel-Landschaft. as
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