Vanderbilt researchers have designed a general purpose system for precise steering of multi-lumen needles. One significant application of the system is decompression of the cranium during hemorrhagic events (ICH).
Vanderbilt researchers led by Dr. Nilanjan Sarkar have invented a multimodal data capture system that gathers multi-sensory data from children and their groundtruth affective states to build a machine learning model yielding individualized profiles in accordance to the interview-informed synthesized contingency analysis.
Various widespread diseases associated with airway constriction can be combatted using airway stents. However, such stents are either prone to clogging themselves or tend to invade neighboring tissue. Vanderbilt engineers have developed a technology that avoids both of these pitfalls by combining the use of tissue-friendly silicone with active cilia for mucus clearing.
The material properties of mucus, such as viscosity and pH, provide information about the well-being of various organ systems. To improve accessibility to mucus sites from throughout the body and increase the validity of measurements, Vanderbilt researchers have developed a wireless millimeter-scale soft robot for direct and accurate mucus sensing throughout the body.
Vanderbilt researchers have developed a novel device for accurately delivering a small aliquot of liquid pharmaceutical agent to a treatment site. This system enables more precise dosage and eliminates expensive waste found in conventional methods.
High-resolution pharyngeal manometry (HRM) provides an inexpensive and objective method for analyzing the pharynx during natural sleep and can be utilized to select candidates for certain surgical procedures for obstructive sleep apnea (OSA).
Vanderbilt University researchers have developed a novel soft pressure sensing pad to track head motion during MRI to improve diagnostic image quality and reduce erroneous artifacts.
This device is designed to assist physical therapists in collection of objective data during gait analysis, to facilitate appropriate assistive gait device prescription, to provide patients and therapists feedback during gait training, and to reduce wrist and shoulder injuries with cane usage.Currently gait characteristics are "measured" in a clinic-based atmosphere. This has two limitations: (i) subjective allocation of "measures" of gait characteristics and (ii) limited data based on trials in the clinic ONLY. What this technology is designed to do is achieve freedom from both of these limitations. The measurements are objective and numerical values (force etc.) and the clinic could provide the cane to the user for obtaining a much more extensive data set including use during normal life activities at home etc.
Vanderbilt researchers have developed a novel method for enabling tentacle-like robots to reach into tight spaces in manufacturing or medical applications. This is useful for industrial inspection tasks, assembly of products like airplane wings with complex geometry, or making medical endoscopes reach places in the body they cannot reach today. The new invention involves routing actuation wires along a flexible arm through curved paths along the robot
