The manus award is a joint initiative which the plastics specialist igus announces every two years. More than 3,000 contestants from across the globe have entered the competition in recent years, which honours the creative use of polymer plain bearings in industrial applications. This year, the manus award celebrates its tenth anniversary. A good reason to look back: what has become of the last nine winners and their projects? The Industrieanzeiger made enquiries
In 2015, Jan-Philipp Kobler received the gold manus for his promotion project. He developed a miniaturised parallel robot that supports doctors when they perform minimally invasive cochlea implant surgery for the treatment of inner-ear deafness and severe hearing difficulties. This technology requires a puncture channel from the skull surface to the basal winding of the cochlea, which can lie up to 35mm below the skull. Such a hole has a diameter of 2mm at most, and is located in direct proximity to anatomic structures that are worth protecting. Therefore, the device must work very precisely and also meet the hygienic medical requirements, such as steam sterilisation and disinfection. Jan-Philippe Kobler decided to use a drylin N glide bar with two carriages from igus to guide the surgical instruments. Furthermore, several iglidur X plain bearings are used in the rotating joint of the robot. The bearings are characterised by their freedom from lubrication, which means that they are ideal for the use in medical applications.