The study of the human body has undoubtedly increased our understanding of human motion. Specifically, the ability to quantify and simulate this motion has enabled advancements in the field of medicine, rehabilitation and psychology, thus furthering the effectiveness of each discipline. With advancements in technology, the interdisciplinary approach of the mechatronics field has enabled greater control of mechanisms mimicking human motion. Major factors in the advancement of technologies are directly related to their physical location and scale. The accessibility of these body parts allows for the use of advanced motion analysis technology currently available. This attribute allows for vast amount of data to be collected, increasing the understating of the body parts’ function and anatomy. Furthermore, its scalability, in comparison to other smaller organs, increases the implementation feasibility of supporting and advanced design mechanisms. Unfortunately, this vast amount of data is not always available for all organs, and associated disciplines. In particular, the discipline of oncology rehabilitation has been identified by this research as a field in which such lack of data has reduced the advancements of tongue prosthetic devices.

 

The number of Total Glossectomy cases in the United States is seeing an increasing trend as per the Nationwide Inpatient Sample Database. Patients, who have undergone such aggressive surgical procedures, have extensive limitations performing basic oral functions such as swallowing (deglutition), eating and speaking. Current rehabilitation prostheses do little in restoring the functionality of the original tongue. This is true especially in deglutition, which is necessary to transfer a bolus to the esophagus. Such patients need advanced prosthetic devices and through this research, investigations into potential solutions for prosthetic tongues to aid in deglutition were carried out.

 

In order to develop a tongue prosthetic, extensive literature review was conducted that provided tongue position, motion, and pressure data during the swallowing stage. Several potential designs were considered such as using linkages and pneumatic networks (PneuNets). Based on a decision matrix, PneuNets were adopted as the foundational basis for generating prosthetic designs. Several prototypes were fabricated using Fused Filament Disposition for mold development and silicone Eco-flex 00-30 for actuator development. Each iteration involved tackling several design and manufacturing challenges especially when scaling these actuators from an initial experiment to an anatomical shape and size of a human tongue. A tongue of dimensions 1.8 inches wide, 2.4 inches long and 0.24 inches thick was developed.

The PneuNet actuator was powered by a pneumatic system and kinematic data was collected using a tracking software. The data gathered provided validation comparisons between position trends exhibited in the literature. Theoretical deflection models were generated for analyzing the deflection of the front, middle and back sections of the tongue prototype. Details from literature review, design iterations, simulations, validation processes, research challenges and conclusions will be discussed in depth.


Investigating the Design and Manufacture of PneuNet Actuators As a Prosthetic Tongue for Mimicking Human Deglutition

Division / Sponsors: 
Aerospace, Bioengineering, Applied Mechanics, Design Engineering Division, Advanced Energy Systems, Manufacturing Engineering Division, Noise Control and Acoustics, Nondestructive Evaluation, Diagnosis, and Prognosis (NDPD), Nuclear Engineering Division, Process Industries Division, Fluids Engineering, Heat Transfer, Materials, Microelectromechanical Systems, Safety Engineering and Risk Analysis, Computers & Information in Engineering


Paper Proceedings: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/IMECE/IMECE2020/volume/84478

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