Clamping Tools of a Capsule for Monitoring the Gastrointestinal Tract Problem Analysis and Preliminary Technological Activity

Author

Menciassi, A. ; Gorini, S. ; Moglia, A. ; Pernorio, G. ; Stefanini, C. ; Dario, P.

Author_Institution

Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna CRIM Laboratory - Polo Sant’Anna Valdera Pontedera, Italy arianna@sssup.it

fYear

2005

fDate

18-22 April 2005

Firstpage

1309

Lastpage

1314

Abstract

This paper describes the development of an active clamping mechanism to be integrated into a swallowable pill for the diagnosis of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. The clamping system allows to stop the pill in desired sites of the GI tract for long monitoring purposes. After discussing the major technical constraints, the design of the clamping system, based on FEA (Finite Element Analysis), is illustrated as well as its fabrication process. The clamping unit is actuated exploiting Shape Memory Alloys (SMA), in wires and spring configuration, and it is driven by a dedicated electrical interface. A fine tuning has been performed in order to limit the power consumption. Then a working prototype is fabricated and preliminarily tested, pointing out a capability of the grasping system over 40 g.

Keywords

Capsular endoscopy; GI tissue clamping; Shape Memory Alloys (SMA) actuation; Clamps; Energy consumption; Fabrication; Finite element methods; Gastrointestinal tract; Monitoring; Prototypes; Shape memory alloys; Springs; Wires; Capsular endoscopy; GI tissue clamping; Shape Memory Alloys (SMA) actuation;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Robotics and Automation, 2005. ICRA 2005. Proceedings of the 2005 IEEE International Conference on

Print_ISBN

0-7803-8914-X

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ROBOT.2005.1570296

Filename

1570296