The use of robots in surgery has provided additional tools for surgeons enabling minimally invasive intervention or even long distance tele-operated surgeries Indeed we may trust on human creativeness and technical capabilities that can ever be improved in terms of technical achievements. In recent years the medicine has enabled significant wellness for the life quality and longevity of the world population. And for the coming years, we may be prepared to experiment even more benefits, as results from advances that are being pursued step by step in new fields of science, such as nanobiotechnlogy.
With the expected miniaturization of devices provided by several works on nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS), nanomanufacturing has actually become a reality .Hence, with the NEMS recent advances on building nanodevices, and the
development of interdisciplinary works, altogether may be translated in few years through the development of integrated nanomachines, also known as nanorobots.
With the use of techniques that are advancing rapidly, such as nano-transducers, and bimolecular computing nanorobots are expected to be able to operate in a well defined set of behaviors performing pre-programmed tasks. Thus in the coming few years, nanorobots being tele-operated to perform surgery, or even nanorobots continually supervising the human body in order to assist organs that may require some kind of repair, is one of the most expected revolutionary tools for biomedical engineering problems.
The development of nanorobots is an emerging field with many aspects under investigation. Simulation is an essential tool for exploring alternatives in the organization, configuration, motion planning, and control of nanomachines exploring the human body. The work we have been done concentrates its main focus on developing nanorobot control and design applied to nanomedicine.
Nanorobot applications could be focused mainly on two major areas, as follows: Nanorobots for surgical interventions, as well as their utilization for patients that need
constant monitoring. The nanorobots require specific controls, sensors and actuators, basically in accordance with each kind of biomedical problem. Advanced simulations can include various levels of detail, giving a trade-off between physical accuracy and the ability to control large numbers of nanorobots over relevant time scales with reasonable computational effort. Another advantage is that simulation can be done in advance of direct experimentation. It is most efficient to develop the control technology in tandem with the fabrication technologies, so that when we are able to build these devices, we will already have a good background in how to control them.
We propose computational mechatronics approaches as suitable way to enable the fast development of nanorobots operating in a fluid environment relevant for medical applications. Unlike the case of larger robots, the dominant forces in this environment arise from viscosity of low Reynolds number fluid flow and Brownian motion and such
parameters are been implemented throughout a set of different investigations. We have been developing practical and innovative paradigms based on the Nanorobot Control Design (NCD) simulator that allows fast design testability comparing various control algorithms for nanorobots and their application for different tasks. Also such information generated by the NCD can be useful as parameters for building nanodevices, such as transducers and actuators.
Nanorobots for Medicine:
In future decades the principal focus in medicine will shift from medical science to medical engineering, where the design of medically-active microscopic machines will be the consequent result of techniques provided from human molecular structural knowledge gained in the 20th and early 21st centuries .For the feasibility of such achievements in nanomedicine, two primary capabilities for fabrication must be fulfilled: fabrication and assembly of nanoscale parts.
Through the use of different approaches such as biotechnology, supramolecular chemistry, and scanning probes, both capabilities had been demonstrated to a limited degree as early as 1998. Even in most liquids at their boiling points, each molecule is free to move only ~0.07 nm from its average position. Developments in the field of biomolecular computing have demonstrated positively the feasibility of processing logic tasks by bio-computers a promising first step toward building future nanoprocessors with increasing complexity. There has been progress in building biosensors and nanokinetic devices, which also may be required to enable nanorobotic operations and locomotion. Classical objections related to the feasibility of nanotechnology, such as quantum mechanics, thermal motions and friction have been considered and resolved and discussions of techniques for manufacturing nanodevices are appearing in the literature with increasing frequency.
Motivation:
One important challenge that has become evident as a vital problem in nanotechnology industrial applications is the automation of atomic-scale manipulation. The starting point of nanotechnology to achieve the main goal of building systems at the nanoscale is the development of control automation for molecular machine systems, which could enable the massively parallel manufacture of nanodevice building blocks. Governments all around the world are directing significant resources toward the fast development of nanotechnology.
At least 30 countries have initiated activities in this field, and beyond that, with government investments to nanotechnology of US$ 800 million in Japan and US$ 774 million in USA .
Developed Simulations:
A useful starting point for achieving the main goal of building nanoscale devices is the development of generalized automation control for molecular machine systems which could enable a manufacturing schedule for positional Nanoassembly manipulation.
Occlusion, red blood cells and nanorobots.
In our work we consider more specialized scheduling problems with a focus on nanomedicine: describing in a detailed fashion the nanorobot control designs and the surrounding virtual workspaces modeling that are required for the main kinematics aspects in the physically-based simulations .Here the biomolecular assembly manipulation could be automatically performed by smart agents, which are given a set of possible tasks for biomedical engineering problems, embedded in a complex 3D environment. Virtual Reality could be considered as a suitable technique for nanorobot design and for the use of macro- and micro-robotics concepts given certain theoretical and practical aspects that focus on its domain of application.
Thus a careful decomposition of the main problem task into subtasks with action based on local sensor-based perception could generate multi-robot coherent behaviors. Several techniques was applied for such aims, as Neural Networks algorithms .Evolutionary computation, chemical based sensors and actuators and even temperature time-gradients just to quote a few. Among other interesting nanorobot applications, we could foresee their use to process specific chemical reactions in the human body as ancillary devices for injured organs. Nanorobots equipped with nanosensors could be used to detect glucose demand in diabetes patients. Moreover, nanorobots could also be applied in chemotherapy to combat cancer through superior chemical dosage administration, and a similar approach could be taken to enable nanorobots to deliver anti-HIV drugs.
FUTURE OF NANOTECHNOLOGY:
Nanotechnology is expected to have an impact on nearly every industry. The U.S. National Science Foundation has predicted that the global market for nanotechnologies will reach $1 trillion or more within 20 years. The research community is actively pursuing hundreds of applications in nanomaterials, nanoelectronics, and bionanotechnology.
Fixing One Cell at a Time:
By 2020, scientist at Rutgers University believes that nano-sized robots will be injected into the bloodstream, and administer a drug directly to an infected cell. This robot has a carbon nanotube body, a bimolecular motor that propels it and peptide limbs to orient itself. Because it is composed of biological elements such as DNA and proteins, it will be easily removed from the body.
Conclusion:
Successful nanorobotic systems must be able to respond efficiently in real time to changing aspects of microenvironments not previously examined from a control perspective. Unlike some prior simulators for simple robots, developed nanorobots that are not restricted to a fixed grid nor behave as simple cellular automata with very simple environments. Also by contrast, most CAD approaches provide only animation or visualization tools, while the NCD is a physically-based simulator.
Furthermore, the architecture that was developed intended to enable the incorporation and evaluation of several control methods and distinct nanorobot shapes analyses.where the nanorobots are being currently projected to be operating in the coming years
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