Team:UCAS-China/Hardware

• Home
• Project
  • Description
  • Design
  • Proof Of Concept
  • Demonstrate
  • Future Plan
  • Engineering
  • Contribution
  • Parts
• Hardware
• Model
  • Model for the Design
  • Dynamic of Hp Infection
  • Dynamic of Hp-SHEEP-Human System
  • Model for Therapy Method
  • Estimation for Individuality in Stable States
• Human Practices
  • Integrated Human Practice
  • Education&Public Engagement
  • Collaborations
  • Implementation
  • Partnership
• Team
  • Meet The Team!
  • Attributions
  • Notebook
  • Acknowledgement

<div> </div> <div> </div> <div> </div> <div> </div>

Hardware

In order to realize the observation of the stomach and the detection of engineered bacteria in the process of treatment, our hardware intends to design a real-time observation and sampling system in the stomach.

Design

The whole working system is composed of a capsule working in vivo and a control magnetic field working in vitro.

Figure 1. Profile Chart of Capsule Main Structure. 1:For motor. 2:For Permanent magnet. 3:Axis of rotation. 4.Sampling Tube.

We put a miniature camera on the front end of the capsule. This micro camera can take pictures in real time in the dark, and transmit the images of various parts of the stomach, especially the lesions, for doctors to diagnose.

There are mainly three parts in the capsule, which are the micro camera, the sampling device, and the floating part of the magnetic levitation system.

Micro camera

This micro camera should be able to take pictures in real-time in the dark and transmit the images of various parts of the stomach, especially the lesions, for doctors to diagnose. On the front end of the capsule, there is an aperture designed for the camera.

Figure 2. Front End of the capsule

Sampling device

The sampling device is a kind of wheel type structure designed by us. Through remote control, we can control the sampling structure to sample many times and store them in the capsule respectively. After the capsule is discharged from the body, we can carry out detailed detection.

Figure 3,4. Sampling Part Design

Figure 5. Sampling Device Model

Magnetic Levitation System

The magnetic levitation system is divided into two parts, which are afloat inside the capsule and a magnetic field controller outside the capsule. The float inside the capsule is a permanent magnet, which can suspend and change its position under the external control magnetic field. In other words, we can control the position of the capsule in the body by controlling the magnetic field in vitro, and take photos and samples of various parts of the stomach.

The magnetic field control system is composed of a magnetic field generator, four direct current motors, and a two-dimensional mobile platform.

The magnetic field generator is composed of a permanent magnet, adjusting electromagnet, and control circuit. Four direct current motors， are fixed on it with instamorph. The permanent magnet provides lift force for the float so that the float inside the capsule can drive the capsule to suspend. The adjusting electromagnet is driven by the control circuit. The three Hall elements in the control circuit are used to sense the magnetic field of the float. When the position of the float deviates from the balance position, the hall element will transmit and output different signals. The control circuit will control the electromagnetic field generation based on the outgoing signal, and then adjust the position of the float to make it always in a balanced position.

Figure 6. Magnetic Field Generator

The two-dimensional mobile platform is composed of stepping motors, direct current motors, screw slides, and control circuits. We can precisely control the number of turns of the stepping motor and the moving distance of the sliding table through the control circuit, and finally, make the magnetic field generator move to the designated position. Through controlling the current with our circuit, we can lift and lower our magnetic field generator so as to lift and lower the capsule.

Figure 7. Two-dimensional Mobile Platform

The actual workflow is as follows. After being swallowed, the capsule reaches the stomach through the esophagus. Under the effect of an external controlled magnetic field, we adjust the external magnetic field to make the capsule reach the designated position, such as the lesion. Then the remote sampling device is used to sample and shoot in a hovering position. After the end, the wheel type sampling structure will rotate, turning the sampling tube that has collected the sample from the sampling port away, and turning the sampling tube that has not been sampled to the sampling port, so as to prepare for the sampling of the next part. After all the sampling work is finished, all control systems can be turned off and the capsule will be discharged naturally through the human digestive tract. Then, the samples were taken out for testing, and the physical and chemical properties of various parts of the stomach were analyzed. Of course, during the whole operation of the capsule, it can take photos and take pictures, and these images will also be sent out in real-time for the doctor to diagnose.

Presented Above is the overall design of our hardware. The whole system is very convenient and powerful. Compared with capsule endoscopy already on the market, we can sample specific sites. The design of the magnetic levitation also allows the scope of work to be extended to the entire stomach with higher accuracy. Multiple sampling can also have a detailed understanding of the whole stomach data, better meet the needs of various diagnoses.

Result

We verify some modules’ function of the device.

We put a miniature camera on the front end of the capsule model. It enables us to take photos in the patients’ stomachs without sufficient light. In addition, it can be connected to a mobile phone with WiFi, so that we can receive its screen in real-time.

Figure 8: microcamera

Miniature Camera In the Dark

Through controlling the two-dimensional mobile platform and magnetic field generator, we can make the capsule free movement in the stomach in three-dimensional space, accurately reach any position in the stomach to complete the detection and sampling work.

Magnetic Levitation System Demonstration Video

Future

Functions this capsule designed to possess currently is quite simple. We have some expectations for future development.

Minimizing the volume of the capsule is very important for this hardware design. One vital point of all capsule devices is smaller enough to be swallowed in.

Second, Microfluidics is contemporarily a popular research topic and tool. We hope to make use of microfluidics to enable our capsule to detect multiple bacteria in real-time. If equipped with detection ability, it will be easy to realize another function: releasing the drug at the appropriate place.

There has been some intestine capsule robot designs with powerful functions. Our team studied it last year. If we could combine two designs, this hardware design would be much more competent.

References

[1] Yim, S. , & Sitti, M. . (2012). Design and rolling locomotion of a magnetically actuated soft capsule endoscope. Robotics IEEE Transactions on, 28(1), p.183-194.