Some tumors are very small and hidden deep in lung tissue, making it difficult for doctors to reach them. To address this challenge, researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Vanderbilt University in the United States have been studying an extremely flexible but sturdy robot that can penetrate lung tissue. In their latest paper published in the journal Science Robotics, they demonstrated that the new robot can autonomously start from point A to point B, while avoiding important structures such as small airways and blood vessels in living laboratory models. Researchers claim that this technology can achieve goals that robotic bronchoscopy cannot achieve. It will provide an additional distance of a few centimeters or even millimeters, which is very helpful for tracking small targets in the lungs. The robot consists of several independent components. The principle of mechanical control components is to use a needle that provides controlled thrust forward and backward, and the needle is designed to allow turning along a curved path. The needle is made of nickel titanium alloy and undergoes laser etching to increase its flexibility, allowing it to easily penetrate the tissue. As it moves forward, the etching on the needle allows it to easily bypass obstacles. Catheters and other accessories can be used together with needles to perform procedures such as lung biopsy. In order to penetrate the tissue, the needle needs to know where it is going. The research team used CT scans of the subjects' chest and artificial intelligence to create a three-dimensional model of the lungs, including airways, blood vessels, and selected targets. Using this 3D model, once the needle sets off towards the target, the artificial intelligence driving software will instruct it to automatically move from "A point" to "B point" while avoiding important structures. Researchers said that it is similar to a autonomous vehicle, but it can navigate through the lung tissue to avoid obstacles such as important blood vessels when reaching the destination. When talking about robots that work inside the human body, people always hope that they are small, flexible, intelligent, flexible, and sturdy. They hope that this type of robot can assist human hands and eyes to go to places that are difficult for human hands to reach and see lesions that cannot be distinguished by human eyes. This time, a new type of robot has been born. It can not only go to the designated destination, but also flexibly avoid some small but important structures. You should know that human organs are so complex that there are too many small obstacles that need to be avoided on the way to the goal. Researchers must put effort into the structure, materials, and motion mode of the robot to allow it to move forward and backward smoothly, and to treat diseases and save people. (New News Agency)
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Source：gmw.cn
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