Motion planning of continuum tubular robots based on centerlines extracted from statistical atlas

Abstract

Continuum tubular robots, which are constructed by telescoping pre-curved elastic tubes, are capable of balancing the force application and steerability during minimally invasive surgeries. These devices are able to reach the desired surgical sites in body cavities without colliding with critical blood vessels, nerves and tissues. However, the motion planning of continuum tubular robots is quite challenging because of their complicated kinematics as well as the high dimensional configuration space. In this paper, a sampling-based motion planning method is proposed based on the Rapidly-exploring Random Tree (RRT) algorithm for continuum tubular robots in 3D environments, such as medullary cavities. The proposed motion planner enables a continuum tubular robot to maneuver roughly along the central axis of the statistical humerus atlas in an approximate follow-the-leader manner. The experiment results have demonstrated the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed motion planning algorithm.

Magnetic-Field-Inspired Navigation for Soft Continuum Manipulator

“…1b). The tip of the continuum robot will induce an artificial current l o⊥ in the opposite direction of current l o in (7). The avoidance term F a can then be derived following the general equation in (5) with the scalar function f (|r o |) being chosen to be inversely proportional to the square of robot-obstacle distance r as follows…”

“…However, research which focuses on navigating the continuum manipulator in an unknown environment is still in its early stages. Most of the previous works employed optimization-based planning [4]- [5] or sampling-based planning [6]- [7]. These methods assume to have (at least) nearcomplete knowledge of the environment prior to initiating any robot movement.…”

The MemoSlide: An explorative study into a novel mechanical follow-the-leader mechanism

“…Concentric tube robots are currently the thinnest existing instruments mentioned in research toward FTL propagation. [9][10][11][12] These instruments contain a telescoping mechanism of pre-curved compliant tubes placed concentrically within one another. Rotating or translating the tubes relative to each other causes them to interact and deform, with the result that the instrument changes shape.…”

Kinematic Control and Obstacle Avoidance for Soft Inflatable Manipulator

“…For soft robots in general, the majority of the navigation methods employed in the literature rely on either an optimization technique [10], [13] or samplingbased planners [19], [21]. While practically useful even in complex environments, these types of methods rely on the availability of a complete or at least near-complete knowledge of the environment.…”