Nobody wants stitches. They suck when they put them in, they suck when they take them out. They feel antiquated, like some holdover from a medieval medical manual, but they get the job done.
A team at Tufts University is working not so much to replace as augment the age-old technology, dragging them kicking and screaming into the 21st century by adding an element of connectivity. In a phrase, “smart stitches.”
The team outlined the technology in a paper published by Microsystems & Nanoengineering, detailing the addition of embedded electronics and sensors to threads used to sew patients back together. The team essentially turned the stitches into low cost circuits able to gauge strain, chemical compositions, temperature and pressure, among other things.
The paper goes on to detail body monitoring potential outside of surface stitches, potentially providing key data like the proper functioning of internal organs.
The data, when compiled, helps provide a portrait of how the healing process is coming along and whether the stitches are having their intended effect. The system created by the researchers could also serve to monitor for signs of inflammation and bacterial infections.
The paper goes on to detail body monitoring potential outside of surface stitches, potentially providing key data like the proper functioning of internal organs.
When they wanted to stash the Ark of the Covenant away at the end of the first Indiana Jones film, the government did what any self-respecting bureaucratic institution would, filing it away in a giant warehouse.
Navigating even the most well-appointed warehouse spaces can get tricky, and keeping tabs on missing inventory a downright nightmare, requiring full staffs over several day-long periods to count and re-count pallets, in hopes of determining whether anything has gone missing. And let’s be honest for a minute: Humans just aren’t great at counting. Robots, on the other hand, well, that’s what they’re designed to do.
“Lost inventory costs companies billions of dollars every year,” explains Marc Gyongyosi. The IFM (that’s Intelligent Flying Machines) CEO founded his company in hopes of applying lessons learned for time spent working on human-robotic interfaces at BMW to the problem of costly warehouse inventory depletion.
“From my background in industrial robotics, I very often saw that with the systems they current have in warehouses, things get lost all the time,” he continues. “You wouldn’t believe how often things get lost. And when they do go and search for stuff, they have to go and climb up forklifts and ladders. They even bring binoculars to find things.“
IFM’s solution to the issue of costly inventory depletion is a small army of drones, high-accuracy counting robots with onboard systems that allow them to navigate the insides of warehouses without direct human oversight. IFM’s drones are designed to deploy between warehouse shifts, taking off autonomously, scanning the aisles and landing themselves for a recharge.