Host: The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers
Name : [in Japanese]
Date : March 04, 2024 - March 05, 2024
Capsule endoscopes are often used for medical examinations of the digestive system. Currently, endoscopy examination takes a few days to be completed because capsules do not have any actuator. Thus, studies have been conducted to address this issue, particularly focusing on impulse-driven and vibration-driven actuators. In this study, an inclined plate-legs actuator inspired by Setaria viridis was developed. The actuator can be driven by external vibration utilizing friction anisomorphism of inclined plate-legs. Small-sized inclined plate-legs actuator were designed and fabricated, considering as parameters the angles (45°, 60°, and 75°) and lengths (4 mm, 6 mm, and 8 mm) of the plate-legs; their friction anisomorphism was evaluated and the corresponding mechanisms were considered. Moreover, the running velocities of the actuators were measured when vibrations with different frequencies and amplitudes were applied. The experimental results confirmed that the actuators run with different mechanisms between lower and higher frequencies. At lower frequencies (< 40 Hz), the velocity increased with an increase in the vibration frequency. At frequencies (> 40 Hz), the actuator velocities exceeded the target speed of >10 mm/s. Therefore, the proposed design of vibration-driven actuator has potential to be applied in capsule endoscopes.
