Current Issue : April - June Volume : 2011 Issue Number : 2 Articles : 4 Articles
We propose controllers for leader-follower attitude synchronization of spacecraft formations in the presence of disturbances, that is, the leader spacecraft is controlled to follow a given reference, while a follower spacecraft is controlled to synchronize its motion with the leader's. In the ideal disturbance-free scenario, we show that synchronization takes place asymptotically. Moreover, we show the property of uniform practical asymptotic stability which implies that the synchronization is robust to bounded disturbances....
Robotic-assisted surgical techniques are not yet well established among surgeon practice groups beyond a few surgical subspecialties. To help identify the facilitators and barriers to their adoption, this belief-elicitation study contextualized and supplemented constructs of the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) in robotic-assisted surgery. Semi-structured individual interviews were conducted with 21 surgeons comprising two groups: users and nonusers. The main facilitators to adoption were Perceived Usefulness and Facilitating Conditions among both users and nonusers, followed by Attitude Toward Using Technology among users and Extrinsic Motivation among nonusers. The three main barriers to adoption for both users and nonusers were Perceived Ease of Use and Complexity, Perceived Usefulness, and Perceived Behavioral Control. This study's findings can assist surgeons, hospital and medical school administrators, and other policy makers on the proper adoption of robotic-assisted surgery and can guide future research on the development of theories and framing of hypotheses....
This paper describes IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit) platforms and their main target applications with a special focus on the 10-degree-of-freedom (10-DOF) inertial platform iNEMO and its technical features and performances. The iNEMO module is equipped with a 3-axis MEMS accelerometer, a 3-axis MEMS gyroscope, a 3-axis MEMS magnetometer, a pressure sensor, and a temperature sensor. Furthermore, the Microcontroller Unit (MCU) collects measurements by the sensors and computes the orientation through a customized Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) for sensor fusion....
Minimally invasive surgical procedures offer advantages of smaller incisions, decreased hospital length of stay, and rapid postoperative recovery to the patient. Surgical robots improve access and visualization intraoperatively and have expanded the indications for minimally invasive procedures. A limitation of the DaVinci surgical robot is a lack of sensory feedback to the operative surgeon. Experienced robotic surgeons use visual interpretation of tissue and suture deformation as a surrogate for tactile feedback. A difficulty encountered during robotic surgery is maintaining adequate suture tension while tying knots or following a running anastomotic suture. Displaying suture strain in real time has potential to decrease the learning curve and improve the performance and safety of robotic surgical procedures. Conventional strain measurement methods involve installation of complex sensors on the robotic instruments. This paper presents a noninvasive video processing-based method to determine strain in surgical sutures. The method accurately calculates strain in suture by processing video from the existing surgical camera, making implementation uncomplicated. The video analysis method was developed and validated using video of suture strain standards on a servohydraulic testing system. The video-based suture strain algorithm is shown capable of measuring suture strains of 0.2% with subpixel resolution and proven reliability under various conditions....
Loading....