This article describes a worm-like soft robot capable of operating in complicated tubular environments, such as the complex pipeline with different diameters, water, oil, and gas environments, or the clinical application in natural orifice transluminal endoscopic surgery. The robot is completely soft and robust, and consists of one multidegree of freedom (DoF) extension module and two clampers for locomotion and steering. The multi-DoF extension module is able to adjust the heading direction in the three-dimensional space. The clamper has a basic expansion module structure and detachable sucking module structure. The combined clamping principle for sticking to the inner wall can be reconfigurable to adapt the tubes with multiple tubular scales and super elastic materials. For fabrication of the mechanical structure, a low-cost and time-efficient method is proposed in this article. Based on our proposed robot, a series of phantom and application experiments are performed. The results demonstrate that the soft robot can freely bend and elongate with the entire soft body, and pass through tubes with changing diameters or branches, dry tubes, liquid environments, hard surfaces, and even soft deformable tubes. It has the ability to remove a load of >10 times its own weight. In addition, an additional visualization unit, biopsy, and electromagnetic sensor are mounted on the robot tip for the real-time image inspection, manipulation, and robot tracking. The proposed worm-like soft robot is compact, flexible-actuated, and sufficiently safe, as well as extensible. Its ability to move in the complex unstructured environment shows a great potential for search and medical applications.
Spintronic devices such as magnetic tunnel junctions and skyrmions have attracted considerable attention due to features such as nonvolatility, high scalability, low power, and high speed. Over the past few years, innovative materials and new structures in this field have resulted in the emergence of new phenomena and exciting device performance. It has been found that the heavy metal (HM)/ferromagnetic metal (FM) interface plays an essential role in spintronic devices. Spintronic device performance can be significantly enhanced through proper modulation of this interface. Recent progress in this blooming field is reviewed with specific emphasis on the HM/FM interface. Investigations into HM/FM-interface-related phenomena, including perpendicular magnetic anisotropy, tunnel magnetoresistance, magnetic damping, spin-orbit torque, and Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction, are put into context. Guidelines for realizing high-performance spintronic devices are provided, and an outlook on their future research direction and potential applications is given.
A novel 16-channel fixed frequency Doppler backward scattering (DBS) reflectometer system has been developed on the HL-2A tokamak. This system is based on the filter-based feedback loop microwave source (FFLMS) technique, which has lower phase noise and lower power variation compared with present tunable frequency generation and comb frequency array generation techniques [J. C. Hillesheim et al. Rev. Sci. Instrum. 80, 083507 (2009) and W. A. Peebles et al. Rev. Sci. Instrum. 81, 10D902 (2010)]. The 16-channel DBS system is comprised of four × four-frequency microwave transmitters and direct quadrature demodulation receivers. The working frequencies are 17-24 GHz and 31-38 GHz with the frequency interval of 1 GHz. They are designed to measure the localized intermediate wave-number (kρ ∼ 1-2, k ∼ 2-9 cm) density fluctuations and the poloidal rotation velocity profile of turbulence. The details of the system design and laboratory tests are presented. Preliminary results of Doppler spectra measured by the multi-channel DBS reflectometer systems are obtained. The plasma rotation and turbulence distribution during supersonic molecular beam injection are analyzed.
A multichannel microwave interferometer system has been developed on the HL-2A tokomak. Its working frequency is well designed to avoid the fringe jump effect. Taking the structure of HL-2A into account, its antennas are installed in the horizontal direction, i.e. one launcher in high field side (HFS) and four receivers in low field side (LFS). The fan-shaped measurement area covers those regions where the magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) instabilities are active. The heterodyne technique contributes to its high temporal resolution (1 µs). It is possible for the multichannel system to realize simultaneous measurements of density and its fluctuation. The quadrature phase detection based on the zero-crossing method is introduced to density measurement. With this system, reliable line-averaged densities and density profiles are obtained. The location of the saturated internal kink mode can be figured out from the mode showing different intensities on four channels, and the result agrees well with that measured by electron cyclotron emission imaging (ECEI).
We propose an optical integrated diagnosis and therapeutic system. The primary experimental results show the high efficiency and feasibility of our theranostics system, which is promising for realizing accurate resection of tumors in vivo and in situ in the future.
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