A Flexible Transoral Robot Towards COVID-19 Swab Sampling
Open accessAbstract
There are high risks of infection for surgeons during the face-to-face COVID-19 swab sampling due to the novel coronavirus’s infectivity. To address this issue, we propose a flexible transoral robot with a teleoperated configuration for swab sampling. The robot comprises a flexible manipulator, an endoscope with a monitor, and a master device. A 3-prismatic-universal (3-PU) flexible parallel mechanism with 3 degrees of freedom (DOF) is used to realize the manipulator’s movements. The flexibility of the manipulator improves the safety of testees. Besides, the master device is similar to the manipulator in structure. It is easy to use for operators. Under the guidance of the vision from the endoscope, the surgeon can operate the master device to control the swab’s motion attached to the manipulator for sampling. In this paper, the robotic system, the workspace, and the operation procedure are described in detail. The tongue depressor, which is used to prevent the tongue’s interference during the sampling, is also tested. The accuracy of the manipulator under visual guidance is validated intuitively. Finally, the experiment on a human phantom is conducted to demonstrate the feasibility of the robot preliminarily.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
A flexible transoral robot with a teleoperated configuration is proposed to address surgeons' risks during face-to-face COVID-19 swab sampling.
“A flexible transoral robot with a teleoperated configuration is proposed to address the surgeons' risks during the face-to-face COVID-19 swab sampling.”
From Advanced Applications of Industrial Robotics: New Trends and Possibilities (2021) · cites this paper as [77]
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Cites
No references could be resolved yet.
Research works printed but not linked: 20
- Chaolin H. Yeming W. Xingwang L. Lili R. Jianping Z. Yi H. (2020). Clinical features of patients infected with 2019 novel coronavirus in wuhan China. Lancet 395, 497– 506. 10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30183-5 31986264 PMC7159299 · DOI · Paper page
- Chen N. Zhou M. Dong X. Qu J. Gong F. Han Y. (2020). Epidemiological and clinical characteristics of 99 cases of 2019 novel coronavirus pneumonia in wuhan, China: a descriptive study. Lancet 395, 507– 513. 10.1016/s0140-6736(20)30211-7 32007143 PMC7135076 · DOI · Paper page
- Gu X. Li C. Xiao X. Lim C. M. Ren H. (2019). A compliant transoral surgical robotic system based on a parallel flexible mechanism. Ann. Biomed. Eng. 47, 1329– 1344. 10.1007/s10439-019-02241-0 30863909 · DOI
- Hosokawa-Muto Qiu J. Sakai H. Sassa Y. Fujinami Y. Nakahara H. (2019). Rapid detection of pathogenic virus genome sequence from throat and nasal swab samples using an exhaustive gene amplification method. Forensicence, Med. Pathol. 15, 399– 403. 10.1007/s12024-019-00128-z 31250258 · DOI
- Jin Y. Cai L. Cheng Z. Cheng H. Deng T. Fan Y. (2020). A rapid advice guideline for the diagnosis and treatment of 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-ncov) infected pneumonia (standard version). Mil. Med. Res. 7, 1. 10.1186/s40779-020-0233-6 32029004 PMC7003341 · DOI
- Kim S. B. Huh K. Heo J. Y. Joo E. J. Yeom J. S. (2020). Interim guidelines on antiviral therapy for covid-19. Infect Chemother. 52, 281– 304. 10.3947/ic.2020.52.2.281 32342676 PMC7335642 · DOI
- Li C. Gu X. Xiao X. Lim C. M. Ren H. (2019b). A robotic system with multichannel flexible parallel manipulators for single port access surgery. IEEE Trans. Ind. Inf. 15, 1678– 1687. 10.1109/tii.2018.2856108 · DOI
- Li C. Gu X. Xiao X. Lim C. M. Ren H. (2020a). Cadaveric feasibility study of a teleoperated parallel continuum robot with variable stiffness for transoral surgery. Med. Biol. Eng. Comput. 58, 2063– 2069. 10.1007/s11517-020-02217-6 32642908 · DOI
- Li C. Gu X. Xiao X. Lim C. M. Ren H. (2019a). Flexible robot with variable stiffness in transoral surgery. IEEE/ASME Trans. Mechatronics PP 23, 120– 128. 10.1109/TMECH.2019.2945525 · DOI
- Li S.-Q. Guo W.-L. Liu H. Wang T. Zhou Y.-Y. Yu T. (2020b). Clinical application of intelligent oropharyngeal-swab robot: implication for covid-19 pandemic. Eur. Respir. J. 56 (2), 2001912. 10.1183/13993003.01912-2020 32675204 PMC7366183 · DOI
- Miguel D. M. Cecà L. M. Costa L. C. D. Geraldo L. F. (2007). Pharyngeal dimensions in healthy men and women. Clinics 62, 5– 10. 10.1590/s1807-59322007000100002 17334543 · DOI
- Milazzo M. Panepinto A. Sabatini A. M. Danti S. (2019). Tongue rehabilitation device for dysphagic patients. Sensors 19, 4657. 10.3390/s19214657 PMC6865205 31717807 · DOI
- Navid F. Mahdi T. Rajnikant P. Atashaz S. F. (2021). Robotics and ai for teleoperation, tele-assessment, and tele-training for surgery in the era of covid-19: existing challenges, and future vision. Front Robot Al. 8, 16. 10.3389/frobt.2021.610677 PMC8079974 33937347 · DOI
- Park S. (2007). “ Safety strategies for human-robot interaction in surgical environment,” in 2006 SICE-ICASE international joint conference, Busan, South Korea, October 18–21, 2006.
- Porter J. Blau E. Gharagozloo F. Martino M. Cerfolio R. Duvvuri U. (2020). Society of robotic surgery review: recommendations regarding the risk of covid-19 transmission during minimally invasive surgery. BJU Int. 126, 225– 234. 10.1111/bju.15105 32383520 PMC7267386 · DOI
- Ren H. Lim C. M. Wang J. Liu W. Song S. Li Z. (2013). Computer-assisted transoral surgery with flexible robotics and navigation technologies: a review of recent progress and research challenges. Crit. Rev. Biomed. Eng. 41, 365– 391. 10.1615/critrevbiomedeng.2014010440 24941414 · DOI
- Sahin C. Dogan B. (2019). The development of a new medical instrument: modified tongue depressor. J. Craniofac. Surg. 30 (7), e595– e597. 10.1097/scs.0000000000005596 31503120 · DOI
- Wang S. Wang K. Liu H. Hou Z. (2020). Design of a low-cost miniature robot to assist the covid-19 nasopharyngeal swab sampling. IEEE Trans. Med. Robot. Bionics. 2020, 1– 5. 10.1109/TMRB.2020.3036461 PMC8544935 36694690 · DOI
- Xiao X. Poon H. Lim C. M. Meng M. Q.-H. Ren H. (2021). Pilot study of trans-oral robotic-assisted needle direct tracheostomy puncture in patients requiring prolonged mechanical ventilation. Front. Robot. Al. 7, 575445. 10.3389/frobt.2020575445 PMC7805924 33501337 · DOI
- Yang G. Z. Nelson B. J. Murphy R. R. Choset H. Mcnutt M. (2020). Combating covid-19–the role of robotics in managing public health and infectious diseases. Science Robot.. 5 (40), eabb5589. 10.1126/scirobotics.abb5589 33022599 · DOI
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Advanced Applications of Industrial Robotics: New Trends and Possibilities
Dzedzickis, A., Subačiūtė-Žemaitienė, J., Šutinys, E., Samukaitė-Bubnienė, U., & Bučinskas, V. (2021) · Applied Sciences · doi:10.3390/app12010135 · Cited by 228 · see citing works
- Authors
- Li, C., Gu, X., Xiao, X., Lim, C. M., Duan, X., & Ren, H.
- Affiliations
- Beijing Institute of Technology (CN)
- National University of Singapore (SG)
- Southern University of Science and Technology (CN)
- Corresponding author
- Ren, Hongliang
- Venue
- Frontiers in Robotics and AI
- Publisher
- Frontiers Media SA
- Published
- 2021-04-12
- Volume
- 8
- Pages
- 612167-612167
- ISSN
- 2296-9144 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC8072391
- OpenAlex
- W3155771942
- Cited by
- 30
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2025: 4 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 10 · 2021: 2
- FWCI
- 1.97
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Frontiers in Robotics and AI (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- National University of Singapore (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- Ministry of Science and Technology of the People’s Republic of China (2018YFB1307703))
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Biomedical Engineering › Soft Robotics and Applications
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Control and Systems Engineering › Robotic Mechanisms and Dynamics
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Mechanical Engineering › Teleoperation and Haptic Systems
- Keywords
- teleoperation, flexible manipulators, tongue depressor, infection control, workspace analysis
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review