Department of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, School of Food and Advanced Technology, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand.
Department of Electronic Engineering, Sir Syed University of Engineering & Technology, Karachi, Pakistan.
Int J Med Robot. 2020 Oct;16(5):1-14. doi: 10.1002/rcs.2140. Epub 2020 Aug 14.
Human gut microbiota can provide lifelong health information and even influence mood and behaviour. We currently lack the tools to obtain a microbial sample, directly from the small intestine, without contamination.
Shape memory alloy springs are used in concentric configuration to develop an axial actuator. A novel design of sampling mechanism is fabricated for collecting the sample from the gut. Storage chamber (500 µl) is used to protect the sample from downstream contamination.
The developed actuator occupies a small space (5 × Ø5.75 mm) and produces sufficient output force (1.75 N) to operate the sampling mechanism. A non-invasive capsule robot was tested ex vivo on the animal intestine, and it captured an average of 134 µl content which was sufficient for microbiome assessment.
Laboratory testing revealed that the collected sample had an amino acid signature indicative of microbiota, mucus and digesta, which provided a proof of concept for the proposed design.
人类肠道微生物群可以提供终身健康信息，甚至影响情绪和行为。我们目前缺乏工具来直接从小肠获得微生物样本，而不会受到污染。
形状记忆合金弹簧以同心配置使用，以开发轴向执行器。设计了一种新颖的采样机构来从肠道中采集样本。储存室（500 µl）用于防止样品受到下游污染。
所开发的执行器占用空间小（5×Ø5.75 毫米），并产生足够的输出力（1.75 N）来操作采样机构。非侵入式胶囊机器人在动物肠道上进行了离体测试，它捕获了平均 134 µl 的内容物，足以进行微生物组评估。
实验室测试表明，所采集的样本具有指示微生物群、粘液和消化物的氨基酸特征，这为提出的设计提供了概念验证。
