科学家在University of Washington（UW）已经开发了自轨3D打印设备，可以在不使用电池或电子设备的情况下提供分析。
UW，工程团队的一部分工程教授詹妮弗·曼科夫（Jennifer Mankoff）说：“我们有兴趣通过3-D打印制作可访问的辅助技术，但我们没有简单的方法来知道人们如何使用它。”曼科夫继续说：“我们能否提出一个可以在消费级，现成的打印机上打印的无电路解决方案，并允许设备本身收集信息？这就是我们在本文中可能出现的。”
为了开发这些设备，工程团队使用了一种称为环境反向散射的方法。此方法使用天线和无线电信号用于无电池或电源的数据传输。
自我追踪3D打印设备
The engineering team had previously worked on developing 3D printed objects that can communicate via Wi-Fi without electronics. An example device is one which orders detergent online if the detergent bottle runs low. But such a device only monitored data in one direction.
这次研究人员想要一些更复杂的东西。可以支持双向运动的设备，并存储和检索无线覆盖范围之外的数据。
A challenge was to figure out a method to monitor movement in both directions, such as the opening and closing of a pill bottle.团队如何解决问题？
工程专业的学生和纸的合着者Vikram Iyer,解释说：“这次我们有两个天线，一个天线在顶部，一个天线可以通过连接到齿轮的开关来联系。因此，打开丸瓶盖将齿轮朝一个方向移动，这将开关推到接触两个天线之一。然后关闭药丸瓶盖，将齿轮朝相反的方向转动，开关撞击了另一个天线。”
为了解码瓶盖的方向，齿轮的齿具有摩尔斯码，例如测序代码。向前运动与向后运动不同。
根据研究人员的说法，相同的概念可以与3D印刷假肢一起使用such as e-NABLE arms.To show this, the team integrated the bi-directional backscatter designs within existing CAD models, in particular, with a 3D printed e-NABLE prosthetic arm. The backscatter system developed by the team was able to record the opening and closing of the arm at 15° angle.
当前，这些设备只是原型，即表明3D打印对象可以感觉到双向运动和存储数据。面临的挑战是缩小系统并将它们嵌入完全开发的可用3D打印设备中。
曼科夫教授说：“该系统将为我们的情况提供更高的保真图片，”她说。“例如，现在我们没有一种方法来跟踪人们是否以及如何使用e-nable手。”
“最终，我想处理这些数据的方法是预测人们是否会根据他们的使用方式放弃设备。”
e-NABLING with 3D printing
使能够, an open source 3D prosthetic community has been very active globally. The organization received a $600,000 grant from Google to develop6,000 3D打印假肢在2年内。
该组织努力提供低成本3D printed prosthetics to amputees in war zones and earthquake-affected areas，例如海地。
As previously reported, e-NABLE also collaborated with Simplify3D, a 3D printing software developer. The collaboration provided3D印刷假肢给儿童.
The University of Washington research brings hopeful news for the e-NABLE community and the wearers of the e-NABLE prosthetics. The recent innovation may lead to better open source prosthetics.
The research paper is titled,3D打印对象的无线分析,由Vikram Iyer，Justin Chan，Ian Culhane，Jennifer Mankoff和Shyamnath Gollakota合着。The research findings will be presented on October 15 at theACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology, Berlin.
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Featured image shows a 3D printed e-NABLE prosthetic hand. Image via Mark Stone/University of Washington
