scholarly journals Dynamic Control of Contractile Force in Engineered Heart Tissue

Author(s):  
Thomas Bifano ◽  
Chris Chen ◽  
Huate Li ◽  
Subramanian Sundaram ◽  
lihua lou ◽  
...  

<p>Three-dimensional engineered heart tissues (EHTs) derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) have become an important resource for both drug toxicity screening and research on heart disease. A key metric of EHT phenotype is the contractile force with which the tissue spontaneously beats. It is well-known that cardiac muscle contractility – its ability to do mechanical work – depends on tissue prestrain (preload) and external resistance (afterload). Objectives: Here, we demonstrate a technique to control both preload and afterload dynamically while monitoring contractile force exerted by EHTs. Methods: We developed an apparatus that uses real-time feedback control to monitor and regulate EHT forces. The system is comprised of a pair of high-speed piezoelectric actuators that can strain the EHT scaffold and a fast optical measurement tool to provide EHT contractile force feedback while monitoring tissue strain. Results: The system was used to regulate the effective stiffness of the scaffold. When controlled to have effectively isometric boundary conditions, EHTs exerted a contractile force that was almost twice as large as that observed under auxotonic conditions. Conclusion: These experimental results demonstrate that EHT contractility can be increased through feedback control to regulate boundary stiffness. Significance: The work advances our understanding of the role that mechanical environment plays in EHT contractility. This could be used to help study or alter EHT phenotype and potentially EHT maturation through controlled mechanical conditioning.</p>

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Bifano ◽  
Chris Chen ◽  
Huate Li ◽  
Subramanian Sundaram ◽  
lihua lou ◽  
...  

<p>Three-dimensional engineered heart tissues (EHTs) derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) have become an important resource for both drug toxicity screening and research on heart disease. A key metric of EHT phenotype is the contractile force with which the tissue spontaneously beats. It is well-known that cardiac muscle contractility – its ability to do mechanical work – depends on tissue prestrain (preload) and external resistance (afterload). Objectives: Here, we demonstrate a technique to control both preload and afterload dynamically while monitoring contractile force exerted by EHTs. Methods: We developed an apparatus that uses real-time feedback control to monitor and regulate EHT forces. The system is comprised of a pair of high-speed piezoelectric actuators that can strain the EHT scaffold and a fast optical measurement tool to provide EHT contractile force feedback while monitoring tissue strain. Results: The system was used to regulate the effective stiffness of the scaffold. When controlled to have effectively isometric boundary conditions, EHTs exerted a contractile force that was almost twice as large as that observed under auxotonic conditions. Conclusion: These experimental results demonstrate that EHT contractility can be increased through feedback control to regulate boundary stiffness. Significance: The work advances our understanding of the role that mechanical environment plays in EHT contractility. This could be used to help study or alter EHT phenotype and potentially EHT maturation through controlled mechanical conditioning.</p>


Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (22) ◽  
pp. 7489
Author(s):  
Hu Shi ◽  
Boyang Zhang ◽  
Xuesong Mei ◽  
Qichun Song

Robot-assisted minimally invasive surgery (MIS) has received increasing attention, both in the academic field and clinical operation. Master/slave control is the most widely adopted manipulation mode for surgical robots. Thus, sensing the force of the surgical instruments located at the end of the slave manipulator through the main manipulator is critical to the operation. This study mainly addressed the force detection of the surgical instrument and force feedback control of the serial surgical robotic arm. A measurement device was developed to record the tool end force from the slave manipulator. An elastic element with an orthogonal beam structure was designed to sense the strain induced by force interactions. The relationship between the acting force and the output voltage was obtained through experiment, and the three-dimensional force output was decomposed using an extreme learning machine algorithm while considering the nonlinearity. The control of the force from the slave manipulator end was achieved. An impedance control strategy was adopted to restrict the force interaction amplitude. Modeling, simulation, and experimental verification were completed on the serial robotic manipulator platform along with virtual control in the MATLAB/Simulink software environment. The experimental results show that the measured force from the slave manipulator can provide feedback for impedance control with a delay of 0.15 s.


2017 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 528-535
Author(s):  
Yoichi Masuda ◽  
◽  
Masato Ishikawa

[abstFig src='/00290003/08.jpg' width='230' text='The tripedal robot “Martian petit”' ] Significant efforts to simplify the body structure of multi-legged walking robots have been made over the years. Of these, the Spring-Loaded-Inverted-Pendulum (SLIP) model has been very popular, therefore widely employed in the design of walking robots. In this paper, we develop a SLIP-based tripedal walking robot with a focus on the geometric symmetry of the body structure. The proposed robot possesses a compact, light-weight, and compliant leg modules. These modules are controlled by a distributed control law that consists of decoupled oscillators with only local force feedback. As demonstrated through experiments, the simplified design of the robot makes possible the generation of high-speed dynamic locomotion. Despite the structural simplicity of the proposed model, the generation of several gait-patterns is demonstrated. The proposed minimalistic design approach with radial symmetry simplifies the function of each limb in the three-dimensional gait generation of the robot.


Author(s):  
Robert W. Mackin

This paper presents two advances towards the automated three-dimensional (3-D) analysis of thick and heavily-overlapped regions in cytological preparations such as cervical/vaginal smears. First, a high speed 3-D brightfield microscope has been developed, allowing the acquisition of image data at speeds approaching 30 optical slices per second. Second, algorithms have been developed to detect and segment nuclei in spite of the extremely high image variability and low contrast typical of such regions. The analysis of such regions is inherently a 3-D problem that cannot be solved reliably with conventional 2-D imaging and image analysis methods.High-Speed 3-D imaging of the specimen is accomplished by moving the specimen axially relative to the objective lens of a standard microscope (Zeiss) at a speed of 30 steps per second, where the stepsize is adjustable from 0.2 - 5μm. The specimen is mounted on a computer-controlled, piezoelectric microstage (Burleigh PZS-100, 68/μm displacement). At each step, an optical slice is acquired using a CCD camera (SONY XC-11/71 IP, Dalsa CA-D1-0256, and CA-D2-0512 have been used) connected to a 4-node array processor system based on the Intel i860 chip.


2013 ◽  
Vol 133 (8) ◽  
pp. 795-803
Author(s):  
Kazuki Nagase ◽  
Shutaro Yorozu ◽  
Takahiro Kosugi ◽  
Yuki Yokokura ◽  
Seiichiro Katsura

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott J. Peltier ◽  
Brian E. Rice ◽  
Ethan Johnson ◽  
Venkateswaran Narayanaswamy ◽  
Marvin E. Sellers

Author(s):  
Mark Kimball

Abstract This article presents a novel tool designed to allow circuit node measurements in a radio frequency (RF) integrated circuit. The discussion covers RF circuit problems; provides details on the Radio Probe design, which achieves an input impedance of 50Kohms and an overall attenuation factor of 0 dB; and describes signal to noise issues in the output signal, along with their improvement techniques. This cost-effective solution incorporates features that make it well suited to the task of differential measurement of circuit nodes within an RF IC. The Radio Probe concept offers a number of advantages compared to active probes. It is a single frequency measurement tool, so it complements, rather than replaces, active probes.


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