Release date: 2017-10-27
When Yao Xing, vice president of Tencent's AI Lab and director of AI Lab, Tencent's artificial intelligence laboratory revealed his AI (artificial intelligence) ambition in a speech at TEDx in October 2016, he wanted to create a warm "big white" for everyone. A student at Nanjing University of Traditional Chinese Medicine has quietly started his “Big White Tour†– hoping to create an acupuncture robot that automatically selects points, positions and painless needles.
Acupuncture was first recorded in the book "The Yellow Emperor's Internal Classics". The general acupuncture theory believes that the energy of life is "qi", and the gas flows in the twelve meridians. If the "qi" is blocked, it will cause disease. Therefore, the cure is to relieve the obstruction or find a temporary alternative route, and use acupuncture or moxibustion to the corresponding channel checkpoint on the meridian, the acupoint, to restore the balance of "qi".
In most of today's medical books and "copper figures," the human body has identified more than 300 points. Despite the controversy over the existence of meridians and acupuncture points at home and abroad, its efficacy has been somewhat recognized internationally. In the United States, for example, by 2015, 44 states have recognized acupuncture and law, and acupuncture has become part of American integrated medicine and healthcare.
For acupuncturists, due to individual differences, how to distinguish between the selection of points, the accuracy of acupoints, and whether acupuncture is appropriate, is the embodiment of the acupuncturist.
In fact, a major aspect of traditional acupuncture attack by modern medicine is that there is a certain degree of subjectivity and uncertainty in manual acupoints, and the acupuncturist's manual standardization is poor, which further causes the acupuncture experiment to be less repeatable. Wait. There have even been studies abroad that acupuncture is no different from comfort therapy.
In this context, attempts to use automatic non-artificial means to acupoint and standardize acupoint positioning have become the efforts of the medical community at home and abroad in recent years.
In 2015, the "Medical Robot" in the "Super Marines" was born, and Xu Tiancheng, a senior student of acupuncture and moxibustion at Nanjing University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, was moved.
Can you make a white that will acupuncture and solve the problems of artificial acupuncture?
Influenced by the father of the acupuncturist, Xu Tiancheng was obsessed with mysterious acupuncture. His online search found that there is very little public information about acupuncture robots at home and abroad. In 2011, there were reports that a production line in Lanzhou, Gansu would be able to produce 100,000 Chinese acupuncture robots capable of acupuncture. The name of this robot comes from the Eastern Han medical scientist Huangfu. He wrote the book "Acupuncture and Moxibustion" in China's first acupuncture and moxibustion.
But since then, there has been no public information.
The field of acupuncture robots is almost blank, and Xu Tiancheng decided to do it himself. The first problem is that the acupuncturist still has to go through some acupoint positioning, how can the robot accurately and automatically take acupoints?
Xu Tiancheng told the news () that although the human body has different differences, the acupoints are fixed according to the proportion of the human body. "For example, the 'Hegu' point commonly used in clinical practice is located in the first and second metacarpals of the back of the hand. In between, the midpoint of the second metacarpal side. No matter how tall or thin you are, your Hegu point is at the midpoint." Therefore, as long as an accurate model is established, most people's "acupoint positioning" problem can be solved. .
Based on this thinking, he boldly combined the traditional meridian acupoints with the achievements of modern scientific civilization - chaos theory, fractal theory, and sketched a "digital meridian map." Fractal theory proves the proportional scaling property of meridians, which is different from the previous scalar graph. The digital meridian map belongs to vector diagram, which means that when using optical equipment to locate human acupoints, there will be no large error in positioning due to distortion caused by scaling. .
Xu Tiancheng believes that the human body belongs to the chaotic system, which seems to be chaotic, but in fact it contains order. Just as a butterfly in South America flaps its wings and causes a hurricane in Florida, a single acupoint in the human body can also exert its regulation on the whole body through the meridians. However, the path of the meridian seems to be irregular, but the fractal theory with irregular geometry can be used to abstract the general law, that is, the meridian cycle has self-similar fractals in structure and function. Attributes. For example, the structure is consistent with the "twig growth" mode - the trunk branches into branches, the branches branch into smaller branches, and the leaves on the branches repeat the pattern of branches on the veins of the veins.
According to the self-similarity and fractal iteration principle of meridian circulation, Xu Tiancheng team used the common meridian points of the heart, spleen and other meridian points as the basic unit to construct a mathematical formula, and programd the fractalized meridian line of six meridian trunks to create numbers. Meridian; and adopt the same technical route, select 85 national standard acupoints on six meridians in twelve meridians to draw digital meridians.
This original "Digital Meridian Theory" ("The hidden order inside chaos - the digital study of meridians") won the second prize of the 14th "Challenge Cup" National College Students Extracurricular Academic Science and Technology Competition. At that time, as a senior student, he did not think that this research from interest had become an important theoretical basis for him and his team to create robots in the future - the latter ("Digital Meridian Theory Acupuncture Robot") won the "ROBO" world. The second prize of the College Medical Robot Creative Competition (China Competition), and was listed as the world's top 36 in the 9th Lee Kuan Yew Global Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition.
Xu Tiancheng, who is still studying for acupuncture and moxibustion at Nanjing University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, introduced the news to the news. By the end of last year, they had successfully digitized 84 national standard acupuncture points. At present, the acupuncture robot initially developed is composed of a meridian instrument, a manipulator, and an acupoint system. Among them, a manipulator developed based on the quantitative relationship between the needle insertion speed and the patient's pain sensation can achieve high-speed needle insertion and reduce needle pain. For people with different "pain", relying on the algorithm and the built-in mechanical sensor, when the needle resistance reaches the threshold, the needle insertion process can be automatically stopped to ensure safe needle insertion.
“The robot will measure the height and sebum thickness of the person before work, measure the position of the acupuncture point, and the measurement accuracy can be accurate to 0.34 mm. There will be an ultrasonic sensor on the robot to avoid too deep, and control the speed and lift of the tie. Pull." Xu Tiancheng said.
The meridian instrument reflects artificial intelligence. According to the standards provided by the National Textbook of Acupuncture and Moxibustion, Xu Tiancheng has input a large number of symptoms to the robot. The robot then gives acupuncture schemes with powerful analytical capabilities. Through the big data platform of robots, it can be standardized to collect acupuncture clinical. The data is ultimately backed up in the clinic. “The ultimate realization is to free doctors from long-term repetitive work and focus more on treatment options.â€
According to Xu Tiancheng, the robot has been able to design 27,000 sets of acupuncture combinations according to symptoms. “Like indigestion, sports injuries and other diseases, this robot has been able to perform acupuncture.†However, he also admitted that some important acupoints, such as Dazhui and Dingchuan, which may involve life safety, can not allow robots to acupuncture for the time being.
In Xu Tiancheng's view, the more important significance of the successful research and development of acupuncture robots is to promote the standardization of acupuncture and the development of acupuncture research. “Research is often hampered by problems such as excessive stimulation of the acupuncture operation on animals. The acupuncture robot avoids the amount of stimulation caused by the difference in the magnitude of the space between the acupuncture and the recipient animal on the basis of simulated human manipulation. Major problems can improve the quality of acupuncture research."
Furthermore, acupuncture can be used not only for humans, animals such as cattle and pigs, but also for household pets such as cats and dogs. Based on the theory of digital meridian, the acupuncture standards of animals can be established to guide robots to acupuncture on animals. This piece is just one of the markets that acupuncture has failed to develop.
However, like most medical robot companies in China, the medical industry's requirements for robots are relatively high. To truly realize clinical application and industrialization, these robots also require a large number of clinical experiments.
Although there are 50 volunteers in the school (including team members), but this acupuncture robot has to do, it is necessary to go out of school and seek the power of the business world.
Source: 澎湃News
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