Recent Patents on Engineering - Volume 18, Issue 2, 2024

Environmental pollution has accelerated and intensified because of the acceleration of industrialization, therefore fabricating excellent materials to remove hazardous pollutants has become inevitable. MXenes as emerging transition metal nitrides, carbides, or carbonitrides with high conductivity, hydrophilicity, excellent structural stability, and versatile surface chemistry, become ideal candidates for water treatment. This review summarizes recent advances in the synthesis and applications of MXenes as adsorbents, photocatalysts, and separation membranes for water purification. Extensive information related to the synthesis and applications of MXenes for water treatment and their associated patents were collected. This review has given a comprehensive survey of the recently reported 2D nanomaterial (NM) MXenes which are used in various water treatment applications. The effects of structure control, surface modification and composite of MXene on the adsorption performance of MXene and the formation of effective heterojunction, photocatalysts separation membrane were discussed in detail. The existing problems in the water treatment applications of MXene were summarized and analyzed. The overview also features discussions on the computational attempts, biocompatibility, and environmental impact in the exploration of MXenes for applications of water treatment, highlighting the challenges and opportunities of these advanced 2D NMs. The prospects of designing MXene based water treatment materials with excellent performance were put forward.

Background: In recent years, literature has suggested that quadruped crawling robots have been widely used in the field of reconnaissance on rugged mountain trails. Under the influence of gait and slope, the joint angle of the robot changes drastically when landing, resulting in the robot drop down from the slope. This has strict requirements for gait planning and gait control of quadruped crawling robots. Objective: The aim of this study is to set up a novel impedance controller based on gearshift integral PID to improve the stability of a quadruped crawling robot during climbing on a continuous slope. Methods: The three-dimensional model of quadruped crawling robot was established. Considering the characteristics of slope terrain, a slope diagonal gait design is proposed, and a gearshift integral PID impedance controller is designed for this gait. The impedance controller based on position PID, integral separation PID and gearshift integral PID is simulated by MATLAB, and the peak value of foot force is compared under ADAMS. Results: Overshoot and transient time of positional PID impedance controller was compared, integral separated PID impedance controller and gearshift integral PID impedance controller, the overshoot was reduced by 8.9% and the transient time was reduced by 20%. Finally, the position impedance controller that meets the requirements and import it into ADAMS to compare the peak foot force was selected, it reduced the foot-end contact force by 8.15%.The results show that the gearshift integral PID impedance control strategy is feasible. Conclusion: The Impedance controller based on gearshift integral PID can provide a reference for other impedance control strategies of quadruped crawling robots.

Background: When any equipment is running, the physical collision occurs in the machinery, which requires the hydraulic buffer devices to absorb and dissipate the impact energy in order to avoid the large vibration and even the damage to the structure caused by the impact load on the equipment. Therefore, the design of hydraulic buffers is very necessary. Objective: Through the analysis of the research status of hydraulic buffers, some valuable conclusions are extracted from the representative and prospective results to predict the future research and development direction of hydraulic buffers. Methods: The researches on hydraulic buffers are summarized and compared, and the characteristics of energy absorption and energy consumption of hydraulic buffers are expounded. Combined with the principle of hydraulic buffers, the related patents of hydraulic buffer are studied. Results: By tracing the characteristics of different types of hydraulic buffers, the main problems existing in the development of hydraulic buffers are analyzed, such as short working life, low energy absorption efficiency, etc. Solving such problems as a prerequisite, the patents’ development of the structure and design method of hydraulic buffers is prospected. Conclusion: The optimization and development of hydraulic buffers are conducive to improving the energy absorption efficiency and frequency of hydraulic buffers. This paper, thus, summarizes the advantages and disadvantages of different kinds of hydraulic buffers by tracing and summarizing the previous patents, learning that the most widely used buffer is the porous hydraulic buffer, but the cushioning performance of core rod buffer is more, which is the main development trend in the future.

Background: In recent years, more and more medical robots have formally stepped into clinical applications and are gradually being accepted by patients. Magnetic resonance image (MRI)-guided breast intervention robot is the most advanced technology for breast cancer treatment. Still, the very limited working space within the MRI scanner restricts the development of breast intervention robots. Objective: In this paper, a compact breast biopsy robot in MRI environment is proposed based on TRIZ theory. Methods: The structure of the robot is optimized by using the curvilinear principle and the asymmetry principle of TRIZ theory to obtain a modified cartesian coordinates robot for breast biopsy. The coordinate systems of the robot are established using D-H method. Next, 3D visualization simulation of the robot is performed by Sim Mechanics of MATLAB, and then kinematic simulation and workspace simulation analysis are carried out. Results: The simulation results show that motion space of the end effector of the robot meets the requirements of breast intervention surgery, and the robot structure is simple and effective. Conclusion: In this paper, a compact breast biopsy robot in MRI environment is proposed. Through the Simulink module of MATLAB to analyze its workspace, it is obtained that its working range is 250 mm × 300 mm × 200 mm, which can cover any position in breast tissue. At the same time, the simulation results of the workspace also show that the structure optimization of the breast biopsy robot based on TRIZ theory is reasonable.

Background: In the manufacturing setup process of weapons, aviation, and aerospace, docking assembly is a key component in determining manufacturing efficiency and quality. The traditional docking method uses manual alignment, which depends on the experience and operation level of the workers, so the docking accuracy is low and the installation speed is slow. In response to this problem, how to achieve automatic docking of weapons and cabins has become a key technology. Objective: The objective of this study is to provide an overview of recent key technologies for automatic docking systems and introduce their respective classification, characteristics, and development. Methods: This paper reviews the patents and products related to the key technologies of automatic docking systems. The structural features, methodological principles, control characteristics and applications of the patents and products are summarized. Results: The key technologies related to different aspects of an automatic docking system are compared and analyzed, and the structural features, and methodological principles are also summarized. The problems of the current key technologies are analyzed, and the current status of research and future directions of the automatic docking system are discussed. Conclusion: According to the key technologies related to different aspects of the automatic docking system, they can be divided into motion mechanism, pose detection technology, and computer control technology. The accuracy, compliance, and flexibility of the automatic docking system can be improved by choosing the proper key technology. Further improvements are needed in terms of fast performance, robustness and authenticity, and more patents on key technologies of automatic docking systems should be invented.

Anticipating stock market trends is a challenging endeavor that requires a lot of attention because correctly predicting stock prices can lead to significant rewards if the right judgments are made. Due to non-stationary, loud, and chaotic data, stock market prediction is challenging. Investors need help to forecast where they should spend their money to make a profit. Investment methods in the stock market are intricate and based on the analysis of large datasets. Expert analysts and investors have placed a high value on developments in stock price prediction. Due to intrinsically noisy settings and increased volatility concerning market trends, the stock market forecast for assessing trends is tricky. The intricacies of stock prices are influenced by several elements, including quarterly earnings releases, market news, and other altering habits. Traders use a number of technical indicators based on stocks that are collected on a daily basis to make decisions. Even though these indicators are used to analyze stock returns, predicting daily, and weekly market patterns are difficult. Machine learning techniques have been extensively studied in recent years to see if they might boost market predictions compared to legacy or conventional methods. The existing methodologies have devised several strategies for predicting stock market trends. Various machine learning and deep learning algorithms, such as SVM, DT, LR, NN, kNN, ANN, and CNN, can boost performance in predicting the stock market. Based on a survey of current literature, this work aims to identify future directions for machine learning stock market prediction research. This research aims to provide a systematic literature review process to discover relevant peer-reviewed journal papers from the last two decades and classify studies with similar methods and situations into the machine learning approach and deep learning. In the current article, the methods and the performance of those adopted methods will be identified for measuring the effectiveness of those techniques.

Background: With the development of economic society, people’s demand for big health products is also growing. At the same time, the uncertainty of big healthy enterprises’ operations is increasing, and the internal factors affecting enterprise performance are also increasing. Methods: Based on the data from 2010 to 2020 of 329 listed big health products companies in China, this paper adopts a fixed effect regression model to empirically analyze the relationship among marketing/ sale expenditure, R expenditure, and economic value added of big health enterprises. The moderating effect of economic level and population size on the model is discussed by grouping regression. Results: The results show that: In the long run, R investment and marketing/ sale investment can significantly promote the growth of the overall value of China’s big health enterprises, and the promotion effect lags. Conclusion: The big business enterprise of health investment in R and marketing/ sale of enterprise development is affected by the business area location, such as R and marketing/ sale spending in big cities can promote enterprise economic value added, and the small city marketing/ sale into obvious economic value added of the enterprise itself. Still, the R investment in the small city has no significant correlation with enterprise economic value added.

Background: As a component of the motor’s electromechanical energy conversion, the winding is very important. When the winding design is improper, the harmonic content is increased, which leads to an increase in the motor loss and torque ripple. Therefore, winding design is very important for motor design. Objective: The effect of winding forms on the induction motor is analysed in this paper. The variation in performance parameters of different winding forms is invesitgated. Methods: This paper takes an 11 kW, 1500 r/min induction motor as the research object; the two- dimensional transient field finite element model has been established to calculate the basic parameters, which are then compared with the experimental data to verify the correctness of the model. Finally, the magnetizing reactance, starting performance, stator leakage reactance, various losses, and efficiency under different winding forms are calculated and compared. Results: When the motor adopts double-layer winding, the magnetizing reactance, stator slot leakage reactance, and harmonic leakage reactance are less than those of the motor with single-layer winding by 13.47%, 25.37% and 20.97%, respectively, while the end-leakage reactance, starting torque, and starting current rotor copper loss are higher than those of the motor with single-layer winding by 7.14%, 9.52%, 18.54%, and 15.23%, respectively. The core loss and stator copper loss of motors with different winding forms are almost unchanged. The efficiency of the motor with single-layer winding is higher than that of the motor with double-layer winding by 1.22%. Conclusion: When the winding form is different, the magnetizing reactance, stator slot leakage reactance, harmonic leakage reactance, and end-leakage reactance are different. Leakage reactance is the main factor that causes a difference in starting torque and starting current between the two winding forms. The core loss and stator copper loss of motor with different winding forms are almost unchanged, while the difference in the rotor copper loss is obvious. In addition, the efficiency of the motor with single-layer winding is higher than that of the motor with double-layer winding.

Pharmaceutical preparation is a kind of finished pharmaceutical product made by combining raw materials with various auxiliary materials in a certain form. At present, the field of pharmaceutical preparations can meet most drug needs, but there are some limitations. It is difficult to realize the production of personalized preparations. Because 3D printing technology has the ability of precise dose control and flexible shape customization, it can realize precise control of drug dosage, release behavior and local targeting in pharmaceutical preparations. Therefore, in medicine, 3D printing technology is increasingly used in the field of pharmaceutical preparations. 3D printing technology provides an important means for new drug printing and personalized drug customization of pharmaceutical preparations in the medical field. The 3D printing technology of drugs will inject fresh vitality into individualized drug delivery. Therefore, the development trend of 3D printing technology for pharmaceutical preparations has attracted more and more attention. In order to optimize the wide application of 3D printing technology in pharmaceutical preparation, 3D printing technology such as inkjet 3D printing technology, extrusion 3D printing technology and laser 3D printing technology were studied. In this paper, the selection, classification and introduction of 3D printing technology such as inkjet 3D printing technology, extrusion 3D printing technology and laser 3D printing technology in pharmaceutical preparations are reviewed. Through the investigation of various patents of 3D printing technology applied to pharmaceutical preparation in medicine, this paper summarizes and analyzes the main problems of 3D printing technology applied to pharmaceutical preparations, such as printing stability, production quality, etc. In addition, the development trend of 3D printing technology is also discussed. Optimization of various 3D printing technologies applied to pharmaceutical preparation in medicine is beneficial to improve printing stability and production quality in medicine. More related patents will be invented in the future.

The operating quality of bearings has also led to higher criteria with the growing status of the manufacturing industry in social production. The eccentricity ratio of the bearing system is particularly susceptible to change during operation as a result of the external load, which has a direct impact on the lubricating properties. On the one hand, a reasonable eccentricity ratio will improve the bearing's lubrication performance, increase stability, and better meet processing requirements; on the other hand, it will result in uncontrollable bearing behavior and may even cause the real world to deviate from the theoretical design model. The study aimed to analyze and discuss the current findings on the change in bearing eccentricity ratio. More than 100 related articles have been summarized, and bearing behavior research results, such as lubrication and load-bearing characteristics, are discussed. This paper discusses the progress of research on the eccentricity ratio problem of fluid-lubricated bearings, as well as the effect of eccentricity ratio change on bearing lubrication characteristics for bearings using different lubricating media. Active control measures to mitigate the negative impact of changing bearing eccentricity ratios are also presented. After analyzing and summarizing the relevant literature, it has been found that the eccentricity is one of the important factors affecting the lubrication characteristics of bearings.