Study of the Airway Resistance of a Micro Robot System for Direct Tracheal Inspection

• Published in: Life System Modeling and Intelligent Computing pp. 555 - 563
• Main Authors: Yu, Lianzhi, Yan, Guozheng, Lu, Yuesheng, Zhu, Xiaofei
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin, Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg
• Series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science
• Subjects: Airway resistance; Flow; Micro robot system; Respiratory system
• ISBN: 3642156142; 9783642156144
• ISSN: 0302-9743; 1611-3349
• DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-15615-1_65

This paper described the structure of a new flexible and active endoscopy micro robot system for direct tracheal inspection; the mobile mechanism of the robot is based on the inchworm movement actuated by pneumatic rubber actuator. There are five air chambers controlled independently, by adjusting the pressures in air chambers, the robot can move in the straight mode or in the bending mode. According to the physical structure of human’s respiratory system and the prototype structure of the micro robot system, the resistance characteristics of the trachea with the micro system were discussed in detail. The airway resistance characteristics models were set up and were analyzed in detail. The simulation experiment results prove that the resistance of the robotic system in airway is small enough for normal breath, and the robot is respectable to be used for inspection in human trachea directly.