Wurdemann Helge A, Sareh Sina, Shafti Ali, Noh Yohan, Faragasso Angela, Chathuranga Damith S, Hirai Shinichi, Althoefer Kaspar
Annu Int Conf IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc. 2015 Aug;2015:8026-9. doi: 10.1109/EMBC.2015.7320255.
Flexible soft and stiffness-controllable surgical manipulators enhance the manoeuvrability of surgical tools during Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS), as opposed to conventional rigid laparoscopic instruments. These flexible and soft robotic systems allow bending around organs, navigating through complex anatomical pathways inside the human body and interacting inherently safe with its soft environment. Shape sensing in such systems is a challenge and one essential requirement for precise position feedback control of soft robots. This paper builds on our previous work integrating multiple optical fibres into a soft manipulator to estimate the robot's pose using light intensity modulation. Here, we present an enhanced version of our embedded bending/shape sensor based on electro-conductive yarn. The new system is miniaturised and able to measure bending behaviour as well as elongation. The integrated yarn material is helically wrapped around an elastic strap and protected inside a 1.5mm outer-diameter stretchable pipe. Three of these resulting stretch sensors are integrated in the periphery of a pneumatically actuated soft manipulator for direct measurement of the actuation chamber lengths. The capability of the sensing system in measuring the bending curvature and elongation of the arm is evaluated.
与传统的刚性腹腔镜器械不同，柔性、柔软且刚度可控的手术操作器可提高微创手术（MIS）期间手术工具的可操作性。这些柔性和柔软的机器人系统能够围绕器官弯曲，在人体内部复杂的解剖路径中导航，并与柔软的环境进行本质安全的交互。在此类系统中，形状传感是一项挑战，也是软机器人精确位置反馈控制的一项基本要求。本文基于我们之前的工作，即将多根光纤集成到一个软操作器中，利用光强度调制来估计机器人的姿态。在此，我们展示了一种基于导电纱线的嵌入式弯曲/形状传感器的增强版本。新系统实现了小型化，能够测量弯曲行为以及伸长情况。集成的纱线材料螺旋缠绕在一条弹性带上，并被保护在一根外径为1.5毫米的可拉伸管道内。将三个这样制成的拉伸传感器集成到一个气动驱动的软操作器的周边，用于直接测量驱动腔的长度。对传感系统测量手臂弯曲曲率和伸长情况的能力进行了评估。
