The manipulation of fast moving, delicate tissues in beating heart procedures presents a considerable challenge to surgeons. We present a new robotic force stabilization system that assists surgeons by maintaining a constant contact force with the beating heart. The system incorporates a novel, miniature uniaxial force sensor that is mounted to surgical instrumentation to measure contact forces...

We present a new technique for multi-axis force/torque sensor calibration called shape from motion. This technique retains the noise rejection of a highly redundant data set but eliminates the need for explicit knowledge of the redundant applied load vectors, yielding faster, more accurate calibration results. A constant-magnitude force (a mass in a gravity field) is randomly moved through the ...

Teach pendant is the most widely used means of robot teaching at present. Despite the difficulties of using the motion command buttons on the teach pendant, it is an economical, robust, and effective device for robot teaching task. This paper presents the development of a force/moment direction sensor named COSMO that can improve the teach pendant based robot teaching. Robot teaching experiment...

In this paper, a fine particle manipulation system using a piezoresistive microcantilever, which is normally utilized in Atomic Force Microscopy, as the manipulator and force sensor, and a top-view Optical Microscope (OM) as the vision sensor is proposed. Modeling and control of the interaction forces among the manipulator, particle and surface have been realized for moving particles with sizes...

This paper describes the development of a Stewart platform-based robot force sensor with distinctive structure of ball joints. The number of ball joints is only a half of the similar style sensors, so it is possible to reduce size and weight of the sensor. The structure of ball joint is described and discussed. Furthermore, we use strain gauges, but not liner voltage differential transformers, ...

BACKGROUND During the process of cell micro operation, the contact force between the entry needle and the cell membrane is usually a very small area to be tested. OBJECTIVE These two features have been utilized to design a high precision micro force sensor to provide a force feedback in the process of cell micro operation. METHODS However, PVDF (Polyvinylidene Fluoride) has continued to dis...

The effectiveness of wireless sensor networks (WSN) depends on the regional coverage provided by node deployment, which is one of the key topics in WSN. Virtual force-based algorithms (VFA) are popular approaches for this problem. In VFA, all nodes are seen as points subject to repulsive and attractive force exerted among them and can move according to the calculated force. In this paper, a sen...

Sidewall roughness measurement is becoming increasingly important in the micro-electromechanical systems and nanoelectronics devices. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) is an emerging technique for sidewall scanning and roughness measurement due to its high resolution, three-dimensional imaging capability and high accuracy. We report an AFM sidewall imaging method with a quartz tuning fork (QTF) for...

To reach high gradients in pulsed operation of superconducting (SC) cavities an active Lorentz force detuning compensation system is needed. For this system a piezoelement can be used as an actuator (other option is a magnetostrictive device). To guarantee the demanded lifetime of the active element, the proper preload force adjustment is necessary. To determine this parameter an absolute force...