A Multimodal, Reconfigurable Workspace Soft Gripper for Advanced Grasping Tasks.

A new generation of soft functional materials and actuator designs has ushered the development of highly advanced soft grippers as adaptive alternatives to traditional rigid end-effectors for grasping and manipulation applications. While being advantageous over their rigid counterparts, soft gripper capabilities such as contact effort are mostly a consequence of the gripper workspace, which in turn is largely constrained by the gripper design. Moreover, soft grippers designed for highly specific grasping tasks such as scooping grains or wide payloads are usually limited in grasping other payload types or in their manipulation versatility. This article describes a reconfigurable workspace soft (RWS) gripper that exploits compliant structures and pneumatic actuators to reconfigure its workspace to suit a wide range of grasping tasks. To achieve desired kinematics, finite element analysis (FEA) studies are conducted to dictate actuator design and materials used. Various grasping modes and their reconfiguration of the gripper workspace are presented and characterized, including the gripper's capability to reliably scoop granular items with radii as small as 1.5 mm, precisely pick items as thin as 300 µm from flat surfaces, as well as grasp large convex, nonconvex, and deformable items as heavy as 1.4 kg. The RWS gripper can modify and increase its grasping workspace volume by 397%, enabling the widest range of grasping capabilities to date achieved by a single soft gripper.

Freeform Liquid 3D Printing of Soft Functional Components for Soft Robotics.

Freeform liquid three-dimensional printing (FL-3DP) is a promising new additive manufacturing process that uses a yield stress gel as a temporary support, enabling the processing of a broader class of inks into complex geometries, including those with low viscosities or long solidification kinetics that were previously not processable. However, the full exploitation of these advantages for the fabrication of complex multilateral structures has been hindered by difficulties in controlling the interfaces between inks and supports. In this work, an in-depth study of the rheological properties and interfacial stabilities between a nanoclay-modified support and silicone-based inks enabled a better understanding of the impact printing parameters have on the extruded filament morphology, and thus on printing resolutions. With these improvements, the fabrication of functional multimaterial pneumatic components applied to soft robotics could be demonstrated, exhibiting superior capabilities compared to casting or traditional extrusion-based additive manufacturing in terms of geometric freedom (overhanging and multimaterial structures), tunability of the component's functionality, and robustness between different phases. Overall, the full exploitation of FL-3DP advantages enables a broader design space for features and functionalities in soft robotic components that require complex and robust combinations of materials.

Formulation and evaluation of nasal mucoadhesive microspheres of sumatriptan succinate.

The purpose of present research work was to develop mucoadhesive microspheres for nasal delivery with the aim to avoid hepatic first-pass metabolism, improve therapeutic efficacy and enhance residence time. For the treatment of migraine, hydroxypropyl methylcellulose (HPMC) K4M and K15M based microspheres containing sumatriptan succinate (SS) were prepared by spray-drying technique. The microspheres were evaluated with respect to the yield, particle size, incorporation efficiency, swelling property, in vitro mucoadhesion, in vitro drug release, histological study and stability. Microspheres were characterized by differential scanning calorimetry, scanning electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction study. It was found that the particle size, swelling ability and incorporation efficiency of microspheres increases with increasing drug-to-polymer ratio. HPMC-based microspheres show adequate mucoadhesion and do not have any destructive effect on nasal mucosa. On the basis of these results, SS microspheres based on HPMC may be considered as a promising nasal delivery system.

Formulation and evaluation of in situ gelling system of dimenhydrinate for nasal administration.

Nasal drug delivery has a variety of advantages. Drugs can be rapidly absorbed through the nasal mucosa, giving rapid onset of action, and avoiding presystemic metabolism. In present study; the nasal mucoadhesive in situ gels of anti-emetic drug Dimenhydrinate were formulated using Gellan gum and Carbopol 934P. The in situ gels so prepared were characterized for gelation, viscosity, gel strength, mucoadhesion, drug content, drug diffusion, ex vivo permeation and histopathological studies. The optimized formulation passing from above tests was further subjected to accelerated stability study. It retained the good stability over the period of 90 days. From the overall performance this in situ gel seems to be an effective delivery system for the nasal route.