Using piezoelectric materials, researchers have replicated the muscle motion of the human eye to control camera systems in a way designed to improve the operation of robots. This new muscle-like action could help make robotic tools safer and more effective for MRI-guided surgery and robotic rehabilitation.
Key to the new control system is a piezoelectric cellular actuator that uses a novel biologically inspired technology that will allow a robot eye to move more like a real eye. This will be useful for research studies on human eye movement as well as making video feeds from robots more intuitive. The research is being conducted by Ph.D. candidate Joshua Schultz under the direction of assistant professor Jun Ueda, both from the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
"For a robot to be truly bio-inspired, it should possess actuation, or motion generators, with properties in common with the musculature of biological organisms," said Schultz. "The actuators developed in our lab embody many properties in common with biological muscle, especially a cellular structure. Essentially, in the human eye muscles are controlled by neural impulses. Eventually, the actuators we are developing will be used to capture the kinematics and performance of the human eye."
Details of the research were presented June 25, 2012, at the IEEE International Conference on Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics in Rome, Italy. The research is funded by National Science Foundation. Schultz also receives partial support from the Achievement Rewards for College Scientists (ARCS) Foundation.
Ueda, who leads the Georgia Tech Bio-Robotics and Human Modeling Laboratory in the School of Mechanical Engineering, said this novel technology will lay the groundwork for investigating research questions in systems that possess a large number of active units operating together. The application ranges from industrial ro
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| Contact: John Toon jtoon@gatech.edu 404-894-6986 Georgia Institute of Technology Research News Source:Eurekalert |
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