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Head of Group

Prof Ferdinando Rodriguez y Baena

B415C Bessemer Building

South Kensington Campus

 

About us

The MIM Lab develops robotic and mechatronics surgical systems for a variety of procedures.

Research lab info

What we do

The Mechatronics in Medicine Laboratory develops robotic and mechatronics surgical systems for a variety of procedures including neuro, cardiovascular, orthopaedic surgeries, and colonoscopies. Examples include bio-inspired catheters that can navigate along complex paths within the brain (such as EDEN2020), soft robots to explore endoluminal anatomies (such as the colon), and virtual reality solutions to support surgeons during knee replacement surgeries.

Why it is important?

...

How can it benefit patients?

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Meet the team

Mr Zejian Cui

Mr Zejian Cui

Mr Zejian Cui
Research Assistant

Mr Spyridon Souipas

Mr Spyridon Souipas

Mr Spyridon Souipas
Casual - Other work

Ms Emilia Zari

Ms Emilia Zari

Ms Emilia Zari
Research Postgraduate

Citation

BibTex format

@inproceedings{Blyth:2014,
author = {Blyth, WA and Barr, DRW and Hankinson, N and Baena, FRY},
title = {An assessment of mecanum wheels for non-destructive testing (NDT) applications},
year = {2014}
}

RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - CPAPER
AB - We present a study into the suitability of mecanum wheels for obtaining holonomic motion on complex geometries, such as those encountered within NDT. There are a number of industrial inspections with challenging requirements for sensors positioning, such as ultrasonic inspection of nozzle welds in pressure vessels. These challenging trajectories necessitate additional degrees of control over conventional two-axis approaches, for example crawlers or X-Y frame systems, which are restrictive. Mecanum wheels in principle offer an excellent advantage for NDT crawlers, enabling unlimited motion within the plane, however the accurate and controllable behaviour of these wheels on non-planar and non-horizontal surfaces is not well understood. In this paper we illustrate the interactions between a mecanum wheel based crawler and complex geometries and construct a model to assess the performance of the mecanum wheels with respect to the requirements of NDT, to smoothly and precisely follow complex trajectories. The potential of mecanum wheel systems is then contrasted against other wheeled systems in terms of NDT demands, and we conclude that the applicability of mecanum wheels to some tasks offers potential gains yet presents additional challenges in others.
AU - Blyth,WA
AU - Barr,DRW
AU - Hankinson,N
AU - Baena,FRY
PY - 2014///
TI - An assessment of mecanum wheels for non-destructive testing (NDT) applications
ER -

Contact Us

General enquiries
hamlyn@imperial.ac.uk

Facility enquiries
hamlyn.facility@imperial.ac.uk


The Hamlyn Centre
Bessemer Building
South Kensington Campus
Imperial College
London, SW7 2AZ
Map location