Thanh Nho Do

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Verified

Thanh Nho verified their affiliation via an institutional email.

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• PhD
• Scientia Senior Lecturer at UNSW Sydney

In the real world, people heavily rely on haptic or touch to manipulate objects. In emerging systems such as assistive devices, remote surgery, self-driving cars and the guidance of human movements, visual or auditory feedback can be slow, unintuitive and increase the cognitive load. Skin stretch devices (SSDs) that apply tangential force to the sk...

There are many instances in nature where continuum, helical manipulators are used to efficiently grasp different objects with various shapes and sizes. Inspired by nature, this paper introduces a continuum, flat, scalable, helical soft‐fabric robotic gripper that is thin and lightweight with stiffness tunability and sensory feedback. The gripper is...

Research on soft artificial muscles (SAMs) is rapidly growing, both in developing new actuation ideas and improving existing structures with multifunctionality. The human body has more than 600 muscles that drive organs and joints to achieve desired functions. Inspired by the human muscles, this article presents a new type of SAM fiber formed from...

Wound closure with surgical sutures is a critical challenge for flexible endoscopic surgeries. Substantial efforts have been introduced to develop functional and smart surgical sutures to either monitor wound conditions or ease the complexity of knot tying. Although research interests in smart sutures by soft robotic technologies have emerged for y...

Soft actuators (SAs) have been used in many compliant robotic structure and wearable devices, due to their safe interaction with the wearers. Despite advances, the capability of current SAs is limited by scalability, high hysteresis, and slow responses. In this paper, a new class of soft, scalable, and high-aspect ratio fiber-reinforced hydraulic S...

Transitioning from horizontal surfaces to vertical walls is crucial for terrestrial robots to navigate complex environments. Replicating such impressive surface transitions in artificial insect‐scale robots has been particularly challenging. Here, innovative control schemes are introduced that enable ZoBorg (a cyborg beetle from Zophobas morio) to...

Endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD) has emerged as a critical alternative to laparoscopic excisional surgery for the removal of early gastrointestinal tumors. However, current robotic systems for ESD face challenges with accessibility, dexterity, and precision in confined spaces due to limitations in actuation methods and mechanical design. To o...

Heart disease encompasses a range of conditions that affect the heart, including coronary artery disease, arrhythmias, congenital heart defects, heart valve disease, and conditions that affect the heart muscle. Intervention strategies can be categorized according to when they are administered and include: 1) Monitoring cardiac function using sensor...

Body sounds serve as a valuable source of health information, offering insights into systems such as the cardiovascular, pulmonary, and gastrointestinal systems. Additionally, body sound measurements are easily accessible, fast,...

Recent advancements in teleoperated surgical robotic systems (TSRSs) for minimally invasive surgery (MIS) have significantly improved diagnostic and surgical outcomes. However, as the complexity of MIS procedures continues to grow, there is an increasing need to enhance surgical tools by integrating advanced functionalities into these instruments f...

Replicating the human shoulder in anthropomorphic systems is notoriously challenging due to its complex combination of mobility and strength. This study presents the design, fabrication, and control of a new soft artificial shoulder that achieves a broad range of motion, torque, and compliance. Powered by soft robotic textiles consisting of a netwo...

A common challenge in home-based rehabilitation is muscle compensation induced by pain or fatigue, where patients with weakened primary muscles recruit secondary muscle groups to assist their movement, causing issues such as delayed rehabilitation progress or risk of further injury. In a home-based setting, the subtle compensatory actions may not b...

Hemodynamic stabilization is crucial in managing acute cardiac events, where compromised blood flow can lead to severe complications and increased mortality. Conditions like decompensated heart failure (HF) and cardiogenic shock require rapid and effective hemodynamic support. Current mechanical assistive devices, such as intra‐aortic balloon pumps...

Covalent crosslinking of silk fibroin via native tyrosine residues has been extensively explored; however, while these materials are very promising for biomedical, optical, soft robotics, and sensor applications, their structure and mechanical properties are unstable over time. This instability results in spontaneous silk self‐assembly and stiffeni...

The heart’s intricate myocardial architecture has been called the Gordian knot of anatomy, an impossible tangle of intricate muscle fibers. This complexity dictates equally complex cardiac motions that are difficult to mimic in physical systems. If these motions could be generated by a robotic system, then cardiac device testing, cardiovascular dis...

One of the practical applications in the field of soft robotics involves the development of soft robotic wearable devices. These devices make use of their intrinsically compliant structures to interact safely and harmoniously with the human body. While soft wearable robots demonstrate their utility in lower‐limb applications for locomotion, the upp...

Flexible robotic systems (FRSs) and wearable user interfaces (WUIs) have been widely used in medical fields, offering lower infection risk and shorter recovery, and supporting amiable human–machine interactions (HMIs). Recently, soft electric, thermal, magnetic, and fluidic actuators with enhanced safety and compliance have innovatively boosted the...

A common challenge in Bicep Curls rehabilitation is muscle compensation, where patients adopt alternative movement patterns when the primary muscle group cannot act due to injury or fatigue, significantly decreasing the effectiveness of rehabilitation efforts. The problem is exacerbated by the growing trend toward transitioning from in-clinic to ho...

As robotics and intelligence increasingly integrate into surgery, the pivotal role of human–robot interaction (HRI) in surgical procedures and outcomes becomes evident. However, debate rages over whether increasing robot autonomy will result in less human involvement. Some scholars assert that autonomy will reduce human participation, whereas other...

Measurements of low‐frequency physiological signals, such as heart rate and pulse waves, play an essential role in biomedical applications for the early diagnosis of abnormal cardiovascular activities. Recent advances in flexible mechanical electronics represent a novel concept of miniaturized, wearable sensors for heart rate measurement that can b...

Textiles are promising candidates for use in soft robots and wearable devices due to their inherent compliance, high versatility, and skin comfort. Planar fluidic textile‐based actuators exhibit low profile and high conformability, and can seamlessly integrate additional components (e.g., soft sensors or variable stiffness structures [VSSs]) to cre...

Minimally invasive procedures assisted by soft robots for surgery, diagnostics, and drug delivery have unprecedented benefits over traditional solutions from both patient and surgeon perspectives. However, the translation of such technology into commercialization remains challenging. The lack of perception abilities is one of the obstructive factor...

Heart failure occurs when the heart cannot pump adequate blood to the body, which afflicts over 60 million people worldwide. Its treatment options include physiotherapy, medication, mechanical heart support, heart surgery, or heart transplantation. Ventricular assist devices have direct blood contact while passive ventricular constraint devices hav...

Haptic (touch) is important for effective interaction with the surroundings. In teleoperated surgical systems, its absence leads to reduced perception, making delicate tasks difficult and resulting in unexpected damage to surrounding tissues. To enhance safety, a force‐feedback system and haptic device are needed. However, existing haptic prototype...

Work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs) are often caused by repetitive lifting, making them a significant concern in occupational health. Although wearable assist devices have become the norm for mitigating the risk of back pain, most spinal assist devices still possess a partially rigid structure that impacts the user’s comfort and flexibil...

Minimally invasive surgery (MIS) has evolved as an effective method for cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) and gastrointestinal (GI) cancers. Recently, soft robotic catheters using soft materials have attracted considerable attention thanks to their ability to navigate through intricate anatomical structures and perform precisely controlled movements....

Palpation is a simple but effective method to distinguish tumors from healthy tissues. The development of miniaturized tactile sensors embedded on endoscopic or robotic devices is key to achieving precise palpation diagnosis and subsequent timely treatment. This paper reports on the fabrication and characterization of a novel tactile sensor with me...

Wide bandgap (WBG) semiconductors have attracted significant research interest for the development of a broad range of flexible electronic applications, including wearable sensors, soft logical circuits, and long‐term implanted neuromodulators. Conventionally, these materials are grown on standard silicon substrates, and then transferred onto soft...

Palpation is a simple but effective method to differentiate tumors from healthy tissues. Development of miniaturized tactile sensors embedded on endoscopic or robotic devices are the key toward precise palpation diagnosis and the subsequent timely treatment. This paper reports on the fabrication and characterization of a novel tactile sensor with m...

The advent of soft robots has solved many issues posed by their rigid counterparts, including safer interactions with humans and the capability to work in narrow and complex environments. While much work has been devoted to developing soft actuators and bioinspired mechatronic systems, comparatively little has been done to improve the methods of ac...

Flexible Mesoporous Electronics In article number 2204946, Hoang‐Phuong Phan, Yusuke Yamauchi, Tuan‐Khoa Nguyen, Mostafa Kamal Masud, and co‐workers develop flexible mesoporous architectures using selective electrochemical deposition. Soft metallic nanopores formed on thin polyimide films offer excellent mechanical bendability, high sensitivity for...

Three‐dimensional (3D) bioprinting technology offers great potential in the treatment of tissue and organ damage. Conventional approaches generally rely on a large form factor desktop bioprinter to create in vitro 3D living constructs before introducing them into the patient's body, which poses several drawbacks such as surface mismatches, structur...

Taking a leaf out of evolutionary biology, soft robots have begun to utilize compliant materials and structures for improved interactions with humans and complex environments. However, these advances have not been followed closely by sensing mechanisms. Biology has had a head start on the development of advanced sensing systems. The human body and...

In recent years, advances in modern technology have altered the practice of surgery from open to minimally invasive surgery (MIS) aided by robots. Teleoperated surgical robotic systems (TSRSs) provide numerous significant benefits for MIS over traditional approaches, including improved safety, more efficient and precise surgery, better cosmesis, sh...

Living environments often require high adaptation from biological organisms, such as altering their shape and mechanical properties [...]

Flexible and implantable electronics hold tremendous promises for advanced healthcare applications, especially for physiological neural recording and modulations. Key requirements in neural interfaces include miniature dimensions for spatial physiological mapping and low impedance for recognizing small biopotential signals. Herein, a bottom‐up meso...

Stretchable Conductive Composites In article number 2200282, Thanh Nho Do and co-workers developed a fabrication strategy to turn desired areas within non-conductive elastomer composites into conductive ones via manipulation of magnetic liquid metal droplets. This fabrication strategy enabled the creation of composites that have high electrical con...

Stretchable composites comprising liquid metal (LM) inclusions and silicone elastomers (LME composites) are of great interest for soft electronics and wearable devices. LME composites consisting of highly deformable materials and low conductive filler ratios offer high stretchability and good strain‐tolerant conductance, while not compromising the...

Stretchable composites comprising liquid metal (LM) inclusions and silicone elastomers (LME composites) are of great interest in the design of soft electronic and wearable devices. Soft conductors consisting of highly deformable materials and low ratio of conductive fillers offer high stretchability and good strain-tolerant conductance while not co...

The integration of micro- and nanoelectronics into or onto biomedical devices can facilitate advanced diagnostics and treatments of digestive disorders, cardiovascular diseases, and cancers. Recent developments in gastrointestinal endoscopy and balloon catheter technologies introduce promising paths for minimally invasive surgeries to treat these d...

The marriage of textiles with artificial muscles to create smart textiles is attracting great attention from the scientific community and industry. Smart textiles offer many benefits including adaptive comfort and high conformity to objects while providing active actuation for desired motion and force. This paper introduces a new class of programma...

On International Women in Engineering Day, members of our editorial board highlight individuals who have inspired them during their research careers.

Current stretchable strain sensors possess limited linear working ranges and it is still a formidable challenge to develop sensors that concurrently possess high gauge factors and high stretchability (ε ~ 100%). Herein, we report a facile method for creating unidirectional strain sensors to address the above issues. Using the 3D printing technique,...

Misalignment between the camera frame and the operator frame is commonly seen in a teleoperated system and usually degrades the operation performance. The effects of such misalignment have not been fully investigated for eye-in-hand systems–systems that have the camera ( eye ) mounted to the end-effector ( hand ) to gain compactness in confined...

Robot-assisted intravascular interventions have evolved as unique treatments approach for cardiovascular diseases. However, the technology currently has low potentials for catheterization skill evaluation, slow learning curve, and inability to transfer experience gained from manual interventions. This study proposes a new weighting-based deep ensem...

The direct deposition of thin metal films on highly elastic substrates is a major technique used to fabricate flexible electronics such as wearable sensors, stretchable transistors, and deformable displays. However, these devices suffer from low stretchability due to the limited ductility of the metal films. Herein, we present a new method of signi...

Presents corrections to the above named paper.

Misalignment between the camera frame and the operator frame is commonly seen in a teleoperated system and usually degrades the operation performance. The effects of such misalignment have not been fully investigated for eye-in-hand systems - systems that have the camera (eye) mounted to the end-effector (hand) to gain compactness in confined space...

Wearable and implantable bioelectronics have experienced remarkable progress over the last decades. Bioelectronic devices provide seamless integration between electronics and biological tissue, offering unique functions for healthcare applications such as real-time and online monitoring and stimulation. Organic semiconductors and silicon-based flex...

Fluid-driven actuators hold a promising position as the power source for robotic artificial muscles (RAMs), especially in medical fields such as surgical robotics. However, existing RAMs are often challenged by scalability, material costs and fabrication methods. Furthermore, the nonlinear hysteresis in fluid-driven RAMs causes oscillations in open...

Fluid-driven soft grippers possess conformable grasping characteristics that differ from their rigid counterparts. Despite advances, their inherent low-stiffness due to constituent materials causes them to be inferior in many high-load applications. Existing fabrication methods of soft grippers that mostly rely on molding silicone elastomers, despi...

The use of soft artificial muscles (SAMs) is rapidly increasing in various domains such as haptics, robotics, and medicine. There is a huge need for a SAM that is highly compliant and facile to fabricate with performance characteristics similar to human muscles. This paper introduces bio-inspired soft hydraulic filament artificial muscles (HFAMs) t...

Surgical robots have had clinical use since the mid-1990s. Robot-assisted surgeries offer many benefits over the conventional approach including lower risk of infection and blood loss, shorter recovery, and an overall safer procedure for patients. The past few decades have shown many emerging surgical robotic platforms that can work in complex and...

Conformable robotic systems are attractive for applications in which they may actuate structures with large surface areas, provide forces through wearable garments, or enable autonomous robotic systems. We present a new family of soft actuators that we refer to as Fluidic Fabric Muscle Sheets (FFMS). They are composite fabric structures that integr...

Surgical robots have had clinical use since the mid 1990s. Robot-assisted surgeries offer many benefits over the conventional approach including lower risk of infection and blood loss, shorter recovery, and an overall safer procedure for patients. The past few decades have shown many emerging surgical robotic platforms that can work in complex and...

Conformable robotic systems are attractive for applications in which they can be used to actuate structures with large surface areas, to provide forces through wearable garments, or to realize autonomous robotic systems. We present a new family of soft actuators that we refer to as Fluidic Fabric Muscle Sheets (FFMS). They are composite fabric stru...

In Natural Orifice Transluminal Endoscopic Surgery (NOTES), a surgical robot that can access the human colon or stomach via natural orifices should have sufficient flexibility to pass through tortuous paths and to be operated in a confined space. In addition, the robot should possess an acceptable stiffness level to hold payloads during the surgery...

Electromagnetic actuators (EMAs) serve the majority of motion control needs in fields ranging from industrial robotics to automotive systems and biomedical devices, due to their unmatched combination of speed, precision, force, and scalability. This paper describes the design and fabrication of miniature soft EMAs that operate based on the Lorentz...

Yon Visell and co‐workers describe miniature soft electromagnetic actuators for applications in robotics. The devices, presented in article number 1800244, are based on fine helical inductors fabricated from silicone polymer colloids, eutectic Gallium Indium alloy, and magnetic (NdFeB) powder. Intrinsically deformable actuators are demonstrated for...

Robotics enables a variety of unconventional actuation strategies to be used for endoscopes, resulting in reduced trauma to the GI tract. For transmission of force to distally mounted endoscopic instruments, robotically actuated tendon-sheath mechanisms are the current state of the art. Robotics in surgical endoscopy enables an ergonomic mapping of...

Variable stiffness for robotics is attracting increasing attention from researchers in the field of surgical robots. A surgical robot that can access the human colon or stomach via natural orifices must be flexible enough to pass through tortuous paths and to work in a confined space. Meanwhile, the robot must also be stiff enough to ensure pushabi...

Stretchable and flexible multifunctional electronic components, including sensors and actuators, have received increasing attention in robotics, electronics, wearable, and healthcare applications. Despite advances, it has remained challenging to design analogs of many electronic components to be highly stretchable, to be efficient to fabricate, and...