A Soft Needle Gripper Capable of Grasping and Piercing for Handling Food Materials

Automation in the food industry is not as developed as in the automotive industry because of difficulties in handling food products with large variations in shape, size, and mechanical properties. In this paper, a pneumatic-driven soft needle gripper is proposed for handling food materials. It was constructed using a soft membrane and multiple rigid needle-like fingers. It can work under two operational modes: grasping and piercing. The grasping mode can be used to grasp shredded and chopped food materials. The piercing mode is for handling food products when only the top surface of the food product is available for handling. The needle gripper is fabricated using a multi-material 3D printer. Experimental tests on various food materials are conducted to validate grasping and piercing operations. The results of grasping tests suggest that the needle gripper can successfully grasp shredded and chopped food materials. A quantitative analysis shows that the relative standard deviation of the grasped food weight was within 20%. Although the results of piercing tests validate that the needle gripper can successfully handle various food materials, releasing the food materials involves certain difficulties.

Priv.-Assoc. Preobrazhensky. About acute encephalitis. Honey. review 1910, no. 21.

In modern works, either the existence of acute (non-hemorrhagic) encephalitis is not mentioned at all, or it is mentioned in passing, as something little-known, dubious, and sometimes as a secondary process with various kinds of inflammation of the soft membrane.

Ultrasonic Thickness Measurements Using Machine Learning

Thickness measurements using an ultrasonic contact test is a well-known nondestructive evaluation technique. However, its implementation in a robotic system with a closed-loop feedback control for artificial intelligent measurements requires precise information of positioning and force of the ultrasonic probe. In this work, we describe an ultrasonic probe developed in our lab that uses a semispherical soft membrane made from an elastomer. The aim is to develop a methodology for precise positioning and force control of a dry contact ultrasonic probe based on the ultrasonic signal information processed using sparse matrix optimization and Fourier analysis techniques. The results show that the proposed methodology makes easy to achieve a fine tuning of the probe orientation with high sensitivity to load and misalignment in order to perform accurate thickness measurements.

Histological evaluation of five suture materials in the telson ligament of the American horseshoe crab (Limulus polyphemus)

An ideal suture material supports healing, minimizes inflammation, and decreases the likelihood of secondary infection. While there are published recommendations for suture materials in some invertebrates, there are no published recommendations for Limulus polyphemus or any chelicerate. This study evaluates the histological reaction of horseshoe crabs to five commonly used suture materials: monofilament nylon, silk, poliglecaprone, polydioxanone, and polyglycolic acid. None of the materials were superior with regards to holding nor was there any dehiscence. Nylon evoked the least amount of tissue reaction. This work also provides a histopathological description of the soft membrane at the hinge area between the opisthosoma and telson (telson ligament) and comments on euthanasia with intracardiac eugenol.