Publications

One of the main concerns of nuclear energy is the treatment of the nuclear waste and thus technology that decreases waste output and waste half-life is consequently very interesting. This is one of the principal aims of the MYRRHA (Multi-purpose, hYbrid Research Reactor for High-tech Applications) GEN-IV reactor project. As a subcritical reactor driven externally by a high-powered accelerator, MYRRHA will be one of the earliest global ...

Problem: In the field of genomics, proteomics and disease diagnostics, it is of great interest to capture individual targets (e.g., cells, bacteria, exosomes) on magnetic beads and to seed them in a microwell array. Optical manipulation of the magnetic beads in the array then allows selecting the targets of interest and moving them to another location for post analysis. However, this technology is hampered by the low fraction of beads that show ...

This paper reviews the safety approach in the design of the in-vessel fuel manipulator (IVFM) for the GEN-IV reactor MYRRHA. The objectives are to establish the acceptance criteria for safe fuel operation, the design and operation methods to reach these, and adequate tests to validate these methods. Within the framework of the national legislation and international guidelines, we iden- tify the safety functions of the IVFM and evaluate the ad- ...

The purpose of this study was to investigate the contribution of stereopsis to the processing of observed manipulative actions. To this end, we first combined the factors "stimulus type" (action, static control, and dynamic control), "stereopsis" (present, absent) and "viewpoint" (frontal, lateral) into a single design. Four sites in premotor, retro-insular (2) and parietal cortex operated specifically when actions were viewed stereoscopically ...

The term participation has been used to define different activities, such as civil debate, communication, consultation, delegation, self-help construction, political decisions. However, participation in design started from the idea that individuals whom being affected by a design project must contribute to the design process. Recently, designers have been moving closer to the future users and developing new ways to empower them to get involved ...

To date powerful dynamic simulation tools are available to estimate the energy consumption in buildings. However, these require a lot of input and generate a large amount of output data. This output has to be filtered to select relevant results for early design phases. As a consequence, early design decisions regarding energy efficiency are in practice often based on architects’ experience or intuition. As architects think in a graphical way, ...

This paper discusses the integrated design of parallel manipulators, which exhibit varying dynamics. This characteristic affects the machine stability and performance. The design methodology consists of four main steps: (i) the system modeling using flexible multibody technique, (ii) the synthesis of reduced-order models suitable for control design, (iii) the systematic flexible model-based input signal design, and (iv) the evaluation of some ...

Retinal Vein Occlusion (RVO) is a common retinal vascular disorder which may cause severe loss of vision. Retinal cannulation appears to be the most effective treatment, but given the small diameter of a retinal vein, it is too difficult and risky for a surgeon to perform this procedure manually. This work reports on the development of an innovative robotic manipulator to assist vitreoretinal surgeons during this procedure using a ...

This paper describes a force-measuring manipulator for minimally invasive surgery. It employs an extracorporeal force measurement system combined with a passive trocar support to deal with the restrictions of a single insertion point in the body. The first contribution is the detailed description of the design and the involved kinematics of the device and the force measurement system, while the second contribution is an extensive performance ...