INDUSTRY News
Scientists achieve robotic surgery breakthrough
A partnership between industry, academia and clinicians has created a new surgery technique that involves robots for improved surgical outcomes. The National Robotarium, made up of Heriot-Watt University and the University of Edinburgh teams, industry partners and Edinburgh- based clinicians, has been awarded £1.25m to further improve the technique, which determines how much of the patient’s tissue is aff ected by cancer and should be removed. The new method will provide surgeons with real-time feedback, allowing for greater precision to diff erentiate between normal and abnormal tissue. “We’re bringing together expertise
from laser manufacturing, fi bre-optic sensors, micromechanical probing and computational modelling to create a mechanical ‘imaging’ probe capable of detecting cancerous tissue that can be used with a standard minimally-invasive surgery instrument. Coupled with this, we’ll be building a ‘mechanically-intelligent’ data modelling framework and will
integrate it into the probe operation for tumour identifi cation and surgical margin assessment. This will eff ectively eliminate the margin of error for surgeons, giving them confi dence that they have removed the correct amount of tissue during the operation itself and reduce the need for further invasive surgery for patients,” said Dr Yuhang Chen from the National Robotarium, who is leading the research. The diff erence between this technique and that of keyhole surgery is that surgeons operating along a keyhole or using techniques for minimally-invasive surgery need to identify diff erent structures or diseased areas, even when these look very similar, giving rise to more normal tissue being removed.
“Robot-assisted surgery is the next major development in minimally-invasive surgery and has seen rapid development in its application for a wide variety of conditions. This project, however, will be one of its fi rst applications to support and improve accuracy in cancer surgeries
which is extremely exciting,” said Mr Hugh Paterson, consultant colorectal surgeon from the Western General Hospital in Edinburgh, where the new technique will be used. The project will use the manufacturing-
related facilities at the National Robotarium, including laser-precision manufacturing equipment and related instrumentation, coupled with expertise in miniature mechanical actuators.
Fashion brand Liu Jo fi ghts the counterfeit market with RFID
benefi ts at store level, but it also brings signifi cant advantages to manufacturing and
Murata ID Solutions’s radio frequency identifi cation (RFID) technology is helping Italian fashion brand Liu Jo strengthen its protection against the grey market whilst driving new effi ciencies across its supply chain. The RFID technology is used at Liu Jo’s distribution centres to help enhance the traceability of products, reduce complexity from the logistics operation and minimise product transit time. “RFID in retail is best known for its
6 April 2022 | Automation
distribution. On top of that, the value that can be gained from using it to fi ght the grey market can be
huge. When leveraged to its full extent throughout the supply chain, it can prove to be a real game-changer, with an ROI of months or even weeks,” said Antonio Rizzi, Vice President at Murata ID Solutions.
Liu Jo’s warehouses will implement Murata’s RFID tunnel gates and software suite id-Bridge 4.0, an advanced web-based platform for end-to-end management of RFID systems. The tunnels
installed on the conveyor belts in the distribution centres provide automatic and fast identifi cation and verifi cation of all products – inbound and outbound. The integration with the id-Bridge software ensures that the tagged products are automatically compared to a list of expected tags as they move through the conveyor system. Only products that match the list are given the green light to proceed.
Each RF tag has a unique serial identifi er and is characterised by high-grade security features, making it a vital tool in the fi ght against fraud. Tagging every product with RFID will enable Liu Jo to track each product with the highest possible accuracy to guarantee authenticity. “RFID will help us boost the effi ciency of the logistics processes while also enabling us to better combat grey market and product counterfeiting, which both represent an increasing threat to our brand value and trust,” said Carlo Del Stabile, Liu Jo’s Chief Operating Offi cer.
automationmagazine.co.uk
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