ORCID Profile
0000-0002-4980-5251
Current Organisations
Nanyang Technological University
,
University of New South Wales
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In Research Link Australia (RLA), "Research Topics" refer to ANZSRC FOR and SEO codes. These topics are either sourced from ANZSRC FOR and SEO codes listed in researchers' related grants or generated by a large language model (LLM) based on their publications.
Nanomaterials | Mechanical engineering | Medical Devices | Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) | Nanotechnology | Sensor Technology (Chemical aspects) |
Diagnostic Methods | Health Status (e.g. Indicators of Well-Being) |
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 06-2015
Publisher: IEEE
Date: 05-2015
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 03-2015
Publisher: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
Date: 07-2021
Publisher: MDPI AG
Date: 23-12-2022
DOI: 10.3390/MI14010027
Abstract: Living environments often require high adaptation from biological organisms, such as altering their shape and mechanical properties [...]
Publisher: American Society of Civil Engineers
Date: 17-04-2018
Publisher: MDPI AG
Date: 05-05-2023
DOI: 10.20944/PREPRINTS202305.0297.V1
Abstract: Palpation is a simple but effective method to differentiate tumors from healthy tissues. Development of miniaturized tactile sensors embedded on endoscopic or robotic devices are the key toward precise palpation diagnosis and the subsequent timely treatment. This paper reports on the fabrication and characterization of a novel tactile sensor with mechanical flexibility and optical transparency that can be easily mounted on soft surgical endoscopes and robotics. Utilizing the pneumatic sensing mechanism, the sensor offers a high sensitivity of 1.25 mbar and negligible hysteresis, enabling the detection of phantom tissues with different stiffnesses ranging from 0 to 2.5 MPa. Our configuration combining pneumatic sensing and hydraulic actuating also eliminates electrical wiring from the functional elements located at the robot end-effector, thereby enhancing the system safety. The optical transparency path in the sensors together with its mechanical sensing capability open interesting possibility in early detection of solid tumor as well as in the development of all in-one soft surgical robots that can perform visual/mechanical feedback and optical therapy.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 08-2018
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 05-11-2020
Abstract: There are many instances in nature where continuum, helical manipulators are used to efficiently grasp different objects with various shapes and sizes. Inspired by nature, this paper introduces a continuum, flat, scalable, helical soft‐fabric robotic gripper that is thin and lightweight with stiffness tunability and sensory feedback. The gripper is fabricated by a facile method of simple insertion using a computerized technique from apparel engineering and controlled by a miniature hydraulic source to grasp different objects at different scales and weights. It uses a thermally activated variable stiffness structure (VSS) for high load capacity that can complete a softening‐stiffening cycle within 24 s, which is among the fastest results reported so far. In addition, a highly stretchable liquid metal‐based soft sensor with an enhanced sensing sensitivity (15 times more sensitive compared to conventional designs) is embedded into the gripper to provide real‐time touch sensing. The gripper successfully grasped various objects of different geometries and weights (up to 220 times of its mass) and retrieved them from confined hollow spaces. Its excellent performance and versatility make it an ideal candidate for various domains, including industry, exploration, rescue, and other applications in confined and hazardous environments such as gas/oil or drainage sectors.
Publisher: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
Date: 08-2023
Publisher: IEEE
Date: 07-2015
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 02-2014
Publisher: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
Date: 02-2023
Publisher: IEEE
Date: 10-2016
Publisher: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
Date: 2020
Publisher: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
Date: 07-2017
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 21-12-2016
DOI: 10.1038/SREP39486
Abstract: Overweight and obesity have been identified as a cause of high risk diseases like diabetes and cancer. Although conventional Intragastric Balloons (IGBs) have become an efficient and less invasive method for overweight and obesity treatment, the use of conventional tools such as catheter or endoscope to insert and remove the IGBs from the patient’s body causes nausea, vomiting, discomfort, and even gastric mucous damage. To eliminate these drawbacks, we develop a novel magnetic soft capsule device with gas-filled balloon inflation. The balloon is made from a thin and biocompatible material that can be inflated to a desired volume using biocompatible effervescent chemicals. In addition, both the outer balloon and inner capsule are designed to be soft and chemical resistance. The soft capsule shell is fabricated using scaffold-solvent approach while the outer balloon utilizes a novel fabrication approach for 3D spherical structure. A prototype of the proposed capsule and balloon is given. Experiments are successfully carried out in stimulated gastric environment and fresh porcine stomach to validate the effectiveness and reliability of the proposed approach.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 2014
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 26-10-2022
Abstract: Stretchable composites comprising liquid metal (LM) inclusions and silicone elastomers (LME composites) are of great interest for soft electronics and wearable devices. LME composites consisting of highly deformable materials and low conductive filler ratios offer high stretchability and good strain‐tolerant conductance, while not compromising the functionality of their host systems. Despite advances, actively achieving electrical conductivity for LME composites with a low ratio of fillers is challenging, especially in highly deformable elastomers. Herein, a new fabrication strategy that turns nonconductive LME composites with highly deformable elastomers into conductive ones using a small amount of magnetic Ni‐doped LM is introduced. By actively manipulating conductive fillers with an external magnetic field, electrically conductive traces can sustainably be achieved at any desired location. Experimental results show that conductive traces have high conductivity of 2.55 × 10 5 S m −1 , high stretchability ( %), good strain‐tolerant conductance ( R / R 0 ≈ 1.56 at 250% strain), and especially a tensile modulus as low as 60.1 kPa at a very low loading ratio (9.7% by volume). The noncontacting magnetic fabrication also enables the creation of erse configurations in 1D, 2D, and 3D, offering a broad range of potential applications from robotics, stretchable electronics, wearable devices, smart garments to biomedical systems.
Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 10-03-2016
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 12-2014
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 12-2022
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 02-2016
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 06-2021
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 11-05-2017
DOI: 10.1038/S41598-017-01898-8
Abstract: Stretchable and flexible multifunctional electronic components, including sensors and actuators, have received increasing attention in robotics, electronics, wearable, and healthcare applications. Despite advances, it has remained challenging to design analogs of many electronic components to be highly stretchable, to be efficient to fabricate, and to provide control over electronic performance. Here, we describe highly elastic sensors and interconnects formed from thin, twisted conductive microtubules. These devices consist of twisted assemblies of thin, highly stretchable ( %) elastomer tubules filled with liquid conductor (eutectic gallium indium, EGaIn), and fabricated using a simple roller coating process. As we demonstrate, these devices can operate as multimodal sensors for strain, rotation, contact force, or contact location. We also show that, through twisting, it is possible to control their mechanical performance and electronic sensitivity. In extensive experiments, we have evaluated the capabilities of these devices, and have prototyped an array of applications in several domains of stretchable and wearable electronics. These devices provide a novel, low cost solution for high performance stretchable electronics with broad applications in industry, healthcare, and consumer electronics, to emerging product categories of high potential economic and societal significance.
Publisher: MDPI AG
Date: 17-06-2023
DOI: 10.3390/S23125671
Abstract: Palpation is a simple but effective method to distinguish tumors from healthy tissues. The development of miniaturized tactile sensors embedded on endoscopic or robotic devices is key to achieving precise palpation diagnosis and subsequent timely treatment. This paper reports on the fabrication and characterization of a novel tactile sensor with mechanical flexibility and optical transparency that can be easily mounted on soft surgical endoscopes and robotics. By utilizing the pneumatic sensing mechanism, the sensor offers a high sensitivity of 1.25 mbar and negligible hysteresis, enabling the detection of phantom tissues with different stiffnesses ranging from 0 to 2.5 MPa. Our configuration, combining pneumatic sensing and hydraulic actuating, also eliminates electrical wiring from the functional elements located at the robot end-effector, thereby enhancing the system safety. The optical transparency path in the sensors together with its mechanical sensing capability open interesting possibilities in the early detection of solid tumor as well as in the development of all-in-one soft surgical robots that can perform visual/mechanical feedback and optical therapy.
Publisher: Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC)
Date: 2022
DOI: 10.1039/D2TA02064E
Abstract: By drop-casting conductive inks onto the soft 3D printed surfaces, strain sensors of spatially-varying thickness mimicking the inherent surface undulation of the substrate are fabricated with a gauge factor of 151 over a linear strain range of ε = 97%.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 30-06-2022
DOI: 10.1038/S41598-022-15369-2
Abstract: The marriage of textiles with artificial muscles to create smart textiles is attracting great attention from the scientific community and industry. Smart textiles offer many benefits including adaptive comfort and high conformity to objects while providing active actuation for desired motion and force. This paper introduces a new class of programmable smart textiles created from different methods of knitting, weaving, and sticking fluid-driven artificial muscle fibers. Mathematical models are developed to describe the elongation-force relationship of the knitting and weaving textile sheets, followed by experiments to validate the model effectiveness. The new smart textiles are highly flexible, conformable, and mechanically programmable, enabling multimodal motions and shape-shifting abilities for use in broader applications. Different prototypes of the smart textiles are created with experimental validations including various shape-changing instances such as elongation (up to 65%), area expansion (108%), radial expansion (25%), and bending motion. The concept of reconfiguring passive conventional fabrics into active structures for bio-inspired shape-morphing structures is also explored. The proposed smart textiles are expected to contribute to the progression of smart wearable devices, haptic systems, bio-inspired soft robotics, and wearable electronics.
Publisher: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
Date: 2020
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 30-08-2017
DOI: 10.1002/EQE.2952
Publisher: MDPI AG
Date: 17-11-2021
DOI: 10.3390/S21227638
Abstract: Soft actuators (SAs) have been used in many compliant robotic structure and wearable devices, due to their safe interaction with the wearers. Despite advances, the capability of current SAs is limited by scalability, high hysteresis, and slow responses. In this paper, a new class of soft, scalable, and high-aspect ratio fiber-reinforced hydraulic SAs is introduced. The new SA uses a simple fabrication process of insertion where a hollow elastic rubber tube is directly inserted into a constrained hollow coil, eliminating the need for the manual wrapping of an inextensible fiber around a long elastic structure. To provide high adaptation to the user skin for wearable applications, the new SAs are integrated into flexible fabrics to form a wearable fabric sleeve. To monitor the SA elongation, a soft liquid metal-based fabric piezoresistive sensor is also developed. To capture the nonlinear hysteresis of the SA, a novel asymmetric hysteresis model which only requires five model parameters in its structure is developed and experimentally validated. The new SAs-driven wearable robotic sleeve is scalable, highly flexible, and lightweight. It can also produce a large amount of force of around 23 N per muscle at around 30% elongation, to provide useful assistance to the human upper limbs. Experimental results show that the soft fabric sleeve can augment a user’s performance when working against a load, evidenced by a significant reduction on the muscular effort, as monitored by electromyogram (EMG) signals. The performance of the developed SAs, soft fabric sleeve, soft liquid metal fabric sensor, and nonlinear hysteresis model reveal that they can effectively modulate the level of assistance for the wearer. The new technologies obtained from this work can be potentially implemented in emerging assistive applications, such as rehabilitation, defense, and industry.
Publisher: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
Date: 02-2023
Publisher: American Chemical Society (ACS)
Date: 19-04-2021
Publisher: Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC)
Date: 2021
DOI: 10.1039/D1TA08521B
Abstract: In this work, we present a new method of creating fibre-metal composites to effectively modulate the in-plane fracture behaviour of brittle conductive thin metal films on stretchable PDMS substrates via insertion of a toughening interlayer of CNFs.
Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 27-01-2016
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 05-03-2018
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 08-2015
Publisher: Mary Ann Liebert Inc
Date: 04-2020
Abstract: Conformable robotic systems are attractive for applications in which they may actuate structures with large surface areas, provide forces through wearable garments, or enable autonomous robotic systems. We present a new family of soft actuators that we refer to as Fluidic Fabric Muscle Sheets (FFMS). They are composite fabric structures that integrate fluidic transmissions based on arrays of elastic tubes. These sheet-like actuators can strain, squeeze, bend, and conform to hard or soft objects of arbitrary shapes or sizes, including the human body. We show how to design and fabricate FFMS actuators via facile apparel engineering methods, including computerized sewing techniques that determine the stress and strain distributions that can be generated. We present a simple mathematical model that proves effective for predicting their performance. FFMS can operate at frequencies of 5 Hz or more, achieve engineering strains exceeding 100%, and exert forces >115 times their weight. They can be safely used in intimate contact with the human body even when delivering stresses exceeding 10
Publisher: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
Date: 10-2021
Publisher: IEEE
Date: 05-2017
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 08-2016
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 17-11-2021
DOI: 10.1038/S41598-021-01910-2
Abstract: Wound closure with surgical sutures is a critical challenge for flexible endoscopic surgeries. Substantial efforts have been introduced to develop functional and smart surgical sutures to either monitor wound conditions or ease the complexity of knot tying. Although research interests in smart sutures by soft robotic technologies have emerged for years, it is challenging to develop a soft robotic structure that possesses a similar physical structure as conventional sutures while offering a self-tightening knot or anchor to close the wound. This paper introduces a new concept of smart sutures that can be programmed to achieve desired and uniform tension distribution while offering self-tightening knots or automatically deploying secured anchors. The core technology is a soft hydraulic artificial muscle that can be elongated and contracted under applied fluid pressure. Each suture is equipped with a pressure locking mechanism to hold its temporary elongated state and to induce self-shrinking ability. The puncturing and holding force for the smart sutures with anchors are examined. Ex-vivo experiments on fresh porcine stomach and colon demonstrate the usefulness of the new smart sutures. The new approaches are expected to pave the way for the further development of smart sutures that will benefit research, training, and commercialization in the surgical field.
Publisher: American Society of Civil Engineers
Date: 04-04-2017
Publisher: IEEE
Date: 23-08-2021
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Date: 27-11-2015
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 19-02-2023
Abstract: Three‐dimensional (3D) bioprinting technology offers great potential in the treatment of tissue and organ damage. Conventional approaches generally rely on a large form factor desktop bioprinter to create in vitro 3D living constructs before introducing them into the patient's body, which poses several drawbacks such as surface mismatches, structure damage, and high contamination along with tissue injury due to transport and large open‐field surgery. In situ bioprinting inside a living body is a potentially transformational solution as the body serves as an excellent bioreactor. This work introduces a multifunctional and flexible in situ 3D bioprinter (F3DB), which features a high degree of freedom soft printing head integrated into a flexible robotic arm to deliver multilayered biomaterials to internal organs/tissues. The device has a master‐slave architecture and is operated by a kinematic inversion model and learning‐based controllers. The 3D printing capabilities with different patterns, surfaces, and on a colon phantom are also tested with different composite hydrogels and biomaterials. The F3DB capability to perform endoscopic surgery is further demonstrated with fresh porcine tissue. The new system is expected to bridge a gap in the field of in situ bioprinting and support the future development of advanced endoscopic surgical robots.
Publisher: MDPI AG
Date: 09-10-2023
DOI: 10.3390/S23198329
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 29-01-2023
Abstract: Taking a leaf out of evolutionary biology, soft robots have begun to utilize compliant materials and structures for improved interactions with humans and complex environments. However, these advances have not been followed closely by sensing mechanisms. Biology has had a head start on the development of advanced sensing systems. The human body and its skeletal muscles can tune their morphologies to interact with the surrounding environment. Inspired by such biological systems, this paper introduces a novel hydraulic soft filament sensor (SFS) with tunable sensitivity. The SFS is a type of hydraulic pressure‐based tubular strain sensor, which has a sensing core made of a soft and stretchable micro‐sized filament filled with incompressible fluid where its inner hydraulic pressure is changed with strain. The SFS can be customized to form a wide range of configurations such as a long fiber or a skin‐like structure. To demonstrate the SFS capability, different configurations for the SFS are fabricated and experimentally validated. The scalable and tunable nature of the SFS makes it suitable for a wide range of wearable and medical applications.
Publisher: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
Date: 06-2016
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 11-06-2020
Location: United States of America
Start Date: 04-2024
End Date: 03-2027
Amount: $430,000.00
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded ActivityStart Date: 08-2022
End Date: 07-2027
Amount: $5,000,000.00
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded Activity