Recent Developments of Actuation Mechanisms for Continuum Robots: A Review

Abstract

Traditional rigid robots face significant challenges in congested and tight environments, including bulky size, maneuverability, and safety limitations. Thus, soft continuum robots, inspired by the incredible capabilities of biological appendages such as octopus arms, starfish, and worms, have shown promising performance in complex environments due to their compliance, adaptability, and safety. Different actuation techniques are implemented in soft continuum robots to achieve a smoothly bending backbone, including cable-driven actuators, pneumatic actuators, and hydraulic actuation systems. However, designing and developing efficient actuation mechanisms, motion planning approaches, and control algorithms are challenging due to the high degree of redundancy and non-linearity of soft continuum robots. This article profoundly reviews the merits and drawbacks of soft robots’ actuation systems concerning their applications to provide the readers with a brief review reference to explore the recent development of soft robots’ actuation mechanisms technology. Moreover, the authors have surveyed the recent review studies in controller design of continuum robots as a guidance for future applications.

Toward Bionic Arthroscopy: A Comprehensive Perspective of Continuum Robotics Principles and Prototypes for the Inception of Arthroscopic Surgery Robots

“…There have been numerous reports on continuum robots in the past few years. [29,55,75,107,108,188,250,[297][298][299] These reports provide detailed discussions on the actuation, structure, sensing, and control of continuum robots. However, unlike previous reviews, this article focuses primarily on the requirements of arthroscopic continuum robots.…”

“…Although existing literature divides the actuation of continuum robots into two main categories, namely extrinsic and intrinsic, [ 29 ] the commonly used actuation methods can be roughly categorized into three types: underactuation based on cable length variation (cable‐driven), pressure‐driven based on fluid (fluid‐driven), and deformation‐driven based on smart materials (smart material‐driven).…”

Deep CNN-Based Static Modeling of Soft Robots Utilizing Absolute Nodal Coordinate Formulation

“…A similar procedure can be carried out to estimate Jij 0 , and then the deformation gradients Jij (Equation ( 9)) can be calculated. Based on the deformation gradient, the strain tensor of a beam element with a circular cross area can be calculated using Equation (14). The axial component ϵ xx remains the same as for a rectangular cross section.…”

“…Mechanical actuation methods involve technologies like concentric tubes and backbone-driven actuators. Meanwhile, fluidic actuation covers designs like pleated, corrugated, belloscope tip-driven, and endoscope systems [14]. To unlock the full capabilities of continuum robots, accurate modeling and control are essential to performing specific movement and manipulation tasks [15].…”

Sensing of Continuum Robots: A Review

“…The progress in the development of biologically inspired robots is eminently forcing various sub-fields of this research to pick up the pace and catch up to this progress. As the development of various types of continuum robots is evolving [ 1 ], it is driving the research of new kinematic structures [ 2 ], locomotion principles [ 3 ], and control algorithms [ 4 ] as well as sensors. The continuum robots itself can be classified based on various criteria.…”