Abstract
Technology to improve tissue development is constantly being improved and refined. Soft robots have been utilized in medical settings due to their compliant nature, reducing the stiffness gradient at tissue-device interfaces. In this paper, we present a pneumatically actuated soft stimulating balloon capable of applying up to 70% strain to a phantom tissue construct at a pressure of 0.3 bar. EcoflexTM0050 is used as a biocompatible material for the membrane, and the interaction between the two was investigated by varying the scaffold stiffness and initial tension. Data from video tracking was used to compute the tensile strain applied to the scaffold. We present here, the first steps of characterizing the device for in vitro implementation and further integration into a custom bioreactor.
This work was partially funded by The United Kingdom Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council grant EP/S021035/1 and by a Department of Automatic Control and Systems Engineering, University of Sheffield, PhD scholarship.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Marco Pontin and Joanna Jones for their input into this work.
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Forbes, F., Smith, A., Damian, D.D. (2022). Characterization of an Inflatable Soft Actuator and Tissue Interaction for In Vitro Mechanical Stimulation of Tissue. In: Pacheco-Gutierrez, S., Cryer, A., Caliskanelli, I., Tugal, H., Skilton, R. (eds) Towards Autonomous Robotic Systems. TAROS 2022. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 13546. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15908-4_9
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