Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), often referred as drones, have been widely implemented for civilian, commercial, search and rescue, and military operations with the advantages of easy deployment, low cost, automation, as well as, most importantly, allowing the execution of dangerous or difficult tasks remotely and safely. However, current UAVs are equipped with a skid or wheel landing gear that limits the application of UAVs to an even and flat ground for safe landing and taking off; this constraint impedes the development of UAVs for application in extreme environments, such as war fields and remote wilderness where proximate level ground is inaccessible. The ability of UAVs to land on un-level ground would help broaden the application of UAVs; in particular, the ability to go beyond thermal imaging to locate a lost hiker with the ability to land and deliver life-sustaining resources in a more timely manner offers a benefit to human rescue missions. This paper presents an innovative robotic landing system consisting of three slanted legs, each individually controlled by a motor. The footpad of each leg has an integrated force sensor for detecting ground touch. An inclinometer is installed on the platform of the landing system to sense the UAVs orientation during landing. Thus, the landing system can keep the platform horizontal when it lands on the ground by extending or retracting the legs. The feasibility and effectiveness of the robotic method have been demonstrated by several indoor and outdoor experiments.
Oropharyngeal (OP) swabbing is a clinical specimen collection method to diagnose the presence of viral infection in the respiratory tract. During the Covid-19 pandemic, OP swab sampling plays an important role in the disease diagnosis. With its advantages in direct visualization of the swab site and less training requirement on medical professionals, OP swab is massively used for COVID-19 specimen collection in many countries. However, patients may demonstrate less tolerance for the OP swabbing by gagging or closing their mouths, which puts the swab tip in contact with the oral palate or tongue and results in defective sampling. Gagging and other involuntary reactions increase the risk to medical workers who are in direct contact with the patients. To solve these issues, this research presents a novel OP swab assembly which can assist adult patients to collect OP swab specimen by themselves or facilitate adults to collect specimens for their children or disable family members. The OP swab assembly has features to mitigate discomforts in the swab procedures as so to reduce involuntary reactions, minimizing specimen contamination. It also has features to keep the mouth open and constrain the motion of the swab tip in the effective sampling area, furtherly ensuring the high quality of the specimen. Experiments were conducted on a standard adult human skull mannequin by using the presented OP swab assembly. The results demonstrated the feasibility and effectiveness of self-collection for OP swabs using the presented assembly and method.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.