Rapid Swab, developed for COVID-19 testing, automates sample collection with minimal human intervention, thereby enhancing overall testing efficiency. It leverages advanced technologies such as deep learning-based nasal detection and visual servoing to accurately identify the nostrils and guide the swab into place. Moreover, an integrated force control system minimizes discomfort during sample collection, significantly reducing patient pain.
Automated Nasopharyngeal Swab Robot
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has spread rapidly and become a global pandemic. Initial screening of patients is most critical to prevent the spread of COVID-19. While nasopharyngeal swab is the reference sampling method to detect severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, the procedure may pose a high risk of cross-infection and also the high workload of medical professionals. We believe that fully automatic sample collection robot systems would have great potential to address these issues, while shortening the collection time.
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Nostrill Detection and Swab Segmentation
Visual-Servo Control
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For visual servoing of the sampling swab, we need to know the end position of the swab. We use a segmentation algorithm to find the whole pixels of the swab. Then we get the line and the tip of the swab with these pixels through RANSAC.
To control the swab sampling robots, we propose a robot system capable automatically of inserting a sampling swab through one nostril using a camera attached to the system.
Force Minimization Control
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Research of suitable force is essential to collect samples accurately and safely. But the quantitative study of force for safe and effective control has not been widely performed yet. Hence, this study presents applied force during the standard nasopharyngeal swab sampling procedure using a handheld sensorized instrument.
Locomotive Capsule Endoscope
Microdrive
The microdrive is one of the most essential tools for extracellular, single-unit recordings in freely behaving animals to detect and isolate the single-unit activities from brain regions of interest. Due to the increasing number of neuroscience research projects using genetically engineered mice, the demand for effective recording devices in freely moving mice is also increasing. Although manually and automatically operated microdrive devices are available, they are limited in terms of size, weight, accuracy, manipulability, and convenience for single-unit recording in mice. The present study proposed a novel microdrive that employs a small, lightweight piezo-motor and a magnetoresistive (MR) sensor with a closed-loop position feedback control system.