WebZine
2017.08
What's New
Self-Driving Wheelchairs Debut in Hospitals and Airports
By Megan Scudellari
Posted 17 Aug 2017 | 19:17 GMT
Autonomous vehicles can add a new member to their ranks—the self-driving wheelchair. This summer, two robotic wheelchairs made headlines: one at a Singaporean hospital and another at a Japanese airport.
The Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology, or SMART, developed the former, first deployed in Singapore’s Changi General Hospital in September 2016, where it successfully navigated the hospital’s hallways. It is the latest in a string of autonomous vehicles made by SMART, including a golf cart, electric taxi and, most recently, a scooter that zipped more than 100 MIT visitors around on tours in 2016.
The SMART self-driving wheelchair has been in development for about a year and a half, since January 2016, says Daniela Rus, director of MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and a principal investigator in the SMART Future Urban Mobility research group. Today, SMART has two wheelchairs in Singapore and two wheelchairs at MIT being tested in a variety of settings, says Rus.
The robot’s computer uses data from three lidars to make a map. A localization algorithm then determines where it is in the map. The chair’s six wheels lend stability, and the chair is designed to make tight turns and fit through normal-sized doorframes. “When we visited several retirement communities, we realized that the quality of life is dependent on mobility. We want to make it really easy for people to move around,” said Rus in a recent MIT statement.
A second autonomous wheelchair recently premiered at Haneda Airport in Tokyo, designed by Panasonic and Whill, Inc., creator of the Model A Whill wheelchair, a sleek, hi-tech wheelchair now on the market in Japan and the United States.
According to a recent press release, Panasonic is planning to conduct technical trials of the WHILL NEXT this year. Like the SMART wheelchair, the WHILL NEXT uses sensors to detect nearby obstacles. It also employs automation technology developed for Panasonic’s autonomous (and adorable) hospital delivery robot, HOSPI. The wheelchair identifies its position, selects routes, and moves to a chosen destination based on a user’s input into a smartphone app. It can even be hailed with the app – the Uber of wheelchairs.
Repairing Organs With the Touch of a Nanochip
By Alyssa Pagano
Posted 12 Aug 2017 | 14:00 GMT
This new device changes the function of cells by injecting them with synthetic DNA
Researchers at Ohio State University developed a way to change cells inside the body from one type to another—with just one touch from a nanochip. This new technology, called “tissue nanotransfection,” could be used to repair and regenerate body tissues, including organs, in a way that is non-invasive and painless.
“When these things come out for the first time, it’s basically crossing the chasm from impossible to possible,” says Chandan Sen, co-leader of the study. “We have established feasibility.”
Previously, experiments with this sort of cell type conversion were done outside the body, in petri dishes. Even if cells from the test subject were removed from the body, converted in the lab, and then reinserted into the body, those new cells often incited an immune response and were rejected. Sen’s method is unique because the conversion takes place entirely inside the body, preventing an immune response. But working in the body can be complicated.
“The moment you go in vivo the complexity is significantly elevated, and now you have to deal with a lot of parameters that are beyond your control,” says Sen.
To keep it simple, Sen’s trials focused on skin cells in mice and pigs. The first step is to place the nanochip on the affected area. When the chip touches the skin, it sends a snippet of synthetic DNA into the surface cells using an electric current, which lasts less than one tenth of a second. The genetic code of the synthetic DNA differs depending on the desired outcome. For example, if the researchers want to convert the skin cells to nerve cells, they use a different code than they would use to convert the skin cells to bone cells.
One of Sen’s experiments successfully healed a mouse’s injured leg. Because scans showed a lack of blood flow in the mouse’s leg, researchers inserted DNA that would change skin cells to the endothelial cells that form blood vessels. Within a week of treatment, the mouse had blood flowing through its leg again. Not only did the the process work to reprogram local cells at the site of the injury, but the entire leg was affected. This is because the mouse’s body also did some work to repair itself.