Traditional moxibustion treatment mainly relies on doctors using specific techniques to stimulate the patient's acupoints with ignited moxa sticks. In view of the poor reproducibility

and different methods of different doctors

difficult to carry out quantitative and qualitative research work in clinical research

a moxibustion mechanical arm was designed. The hardware modules of the mechanical arm are composed of power

micro controller STM32

position servos

moxibustion strip thruster

human-computer interaction panel and sensors; the software parts are composed of main control program and interrupt service program. The use of this moxibustion mechanical arm will enhance the system's multi-task adaptability and could perform a variety of moxibustion methods including circling moxibustion and sparrow-pecking moxibustion. The data collected in real time will be transmitted to PC through bluetooth

displayed on OLED

and the system operation modes could be switched by button. Clinical trials showed that moxibustion mechanical arm had the same treatment effects with traditional moxibustion. Meanwhile

its convenience of ope-ration

repeatability of treatment

doctors and patients' s treatment experience are all better than those of traditional moxibustion.