Soft-bodied Small-scale Mobile Robots
小型移动软体机器人
Metin Sitti
ABSRACT
Untethered small-scale mobile robots have the potential to revolutionize healthcare, since they have the unique capability of accessing, operating and possibly staying inside hard and currently not possible to reach small spaces inside the human body non-invasively. On the other hand, soft-bodied robots have unique capabilities with compared to their fully rigid counterparts, such as shape changing and programming, physical adaptation, safe operation, and multifunctionality. Using such unique capabilities of soft robots for medical applications, we propose new miniature soft medical robots that are actuated using external magnetic fields. We first developed a shape-programming methodology for 2D magneto-elastic materials, and used such materials to create magnetic soft millirobots inspired by soft-bodied organisms, such as spermatozoids, caterpillars, and jellyfishes. A magneto-elastic sheet-shaped soft robot is demonstrated to be able to have seven or more locomotion modalities to be able to navigate in complex environments, such as inside the human body. Next, a baby jellyfish-inspired magneto-elastic milliswimmer is shown to realize multiple functionalities by producing diverse controlled fluidic flows around its body. Then, an array of cilia-inspired magneto-elastic cilia is developed to generate metachronal waves for efficient biofluid pumping and fluidic object manipulation. Also, various 3D metastructures-based soft robots with specific medical functionalities are introduced under ultrasound type of medical imaging modalities. Finally, liquid crystal elastomer type of stimuli-responsive materials are integrated with magneto-elastic composites towards self-sensing and self-adapting physically intelligent robots at the small scale.
不受束缚的小型移动机器人在医疗健康领域具有巨大潜力，因为在难以通过无创的方式到达的人体内部狭小空间内，这类小型移动机器人具有可控操作并准确停留的独特能力。此外，与完全刚性的机器人相比，软体机器人具有一些新的特性，例如可以进行编程化形状改变，物理适应性强，安全操作以及多功能性等。通过将具有独特功能的软体机器人应用于医疗领域，我们提出了通过外部磁场驱动的新型微型软体医疗机器人，首先开发了一种用于二维磁弹性材料的形状编程方法。受软性有机体（如精子，毛毛虫和水母）的启发，将这种材料用于构建磁性软体机器人，具有七种或更多的运动方式，并在复杂的环境（如人体内部）中精准导航。之后，研发了受小水母启发的磁弹性机器人，通过身体周围的可控流体实现多种功能。进一步提出了一系列由纤毛启发的磁弹性纤毛，以产生用于生物流体有效泵送和流体对象操控的波。同时，在超声辅助的医学成像模态下，引入了具有特定医学功能的各种具有三维结构的软体机器人。最后，将刺激响应的液晶材料与磁弹性材料集成，以实现小尺度下的自感应与自适应的物理智能机器人。
BIOGRAPHY
Metin Sitti has been pioneering the fields of small-scale bio-inspired robots, wireless soft medical robots and devices, gecko-inspired adhesives, and physical intelligence. He is the director of Physical Intelligence Department at Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart, Germany. He is also a professor in Institute for Biomedical Engineering at ETH Zurich, Switzerland and a professor in School of Medicine and College of Engineering at Koç University, Turkey. He was a professor at Carnegie Mellon University (2002-2014) and a research scientist at UC Berkeley (1999-2002) in USA. He received BSc (1992) and MSc degrees (1994) from Boğaziçi University, Turkey, and PhD degree from University of Tokyo, Japan (1999) in electrical engineering. He founded nanoGriptech Inc. in 2012 to commercialize his lab’s gecko-inspired microfiber adhesive technology, branded as Setex®. He is an IEEE Fellow. As selected awards, he received the Breakthrough of the Year Award in the Falling Walls World Science Summit 2020, ERC Advanced Grant in 2019, Rahmi Koç Science Prize in 2018, Best Paper Award in the Robotics Science and Systems Conference in 2019, IEEE/ASME Best Mechatronics Paper Award in 2014, SPIE Nanoengineering Pioneer Award in 2011, Best Paper Award in the IEEE/RSJ Intelligent Robots and Systems Conference in 2009 and 1998, and NSF CAREER Award in 2005. He has published over 480 peer-reviewed papers, over 300 of which have appeared in archival journals. He has given over 240 invited keynote, plenary or distinguished seminars in universities, conference and industry. His group’s research breakthroughs have been featured in the popular press, such as New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Le Monde, Economist, Der Spiegel, Forbes, Science, New Scientist, Nature News, and MIT Technology Review. He is the editor-in-chief of Progress in Biomedical Engineering and Journal of Micro-Bio Robotics and associate editor in Science Advances and Extreme Mechanics Letters journals.
Metin Sitti教授课题组在小型仿生机器人、无线软体医疗机器人、壁虎型粘合剂以及物理智能等领域处于世界领先地位。他是德国马克斯普朗克智能系统研究所物理智能系主任，同时还是瑞士苏黎世联邦理工学院生物医学工程研究所的教授。他于2002年-2014年在美国卡内基梅隆大学担任教授，此前曾在加州大学伯克利分校担任研究科学家（1999-2002）。他在土耳其博阿济大学获得理学学士学位（1992年）和理学硕士学位（1994年），之后在日本东京大学电机工程系获得博士学位（1999年）。2012年，他成立了nanoGriptech公司，将其实验室以壁虎为灵感的超细纤维粘合剂技术商业化。同时，他是美国电气工程师协会的会士，并获得了多项大奖，包括2020年Falling Walls世界科学峰会年度突破奖、2019年ERC高级奖、2018年Rahmi Koç科学奖、2019年机器人科学与系统大会最佳论文奖、2014年IEEE/ASME最佳机电一体化论文奖、2011年SPIE纳米工程先锋奖等。
Metin Sitti教授累计发表了480多篇同行评议论文，在大学、会议和工业界进行了240多场特邀大会报告或主题演讲。他的团队的研究成果被多家新闻媒体追踪报道，包括《纽约时报》、《华尔街日报》、《世界报》、《经济学家》、《明镜》、《福布斯》、《科学》、《新科学家》、《自然新闻》和《麻省理工学院技术评论》。同时，他是《Progress in Biomedical Engineering》和《Micro-Bio Robotics》的主编，并担任《Science Advances》和《Extreme Mechanics Letters》杂志的副主编。