Rox Margaret, Esser Daniel S, Smith Mariana E, Ertop Tayfun Efe, Emerson Maxwell, Maldonado Fabien, Gillaspie Erin A, Kuntz Alan, Webster Robert J
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, 37203.
Department of Medicine and Thoracic Surgery at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN 37212, USA.
IEEE Robot Autom Lett. 2023 Jun;8(6):3494-3501. doi: 10.1109/LRA.2023.3267006. Epub 2023 Apr 13.
Toward the future goal of creating a lung surgery system featuring multiple tentacle-like robots, we present a new folding concept for continuum robots that enables them to squeeze through openings smaller than the robot's nominal diameter (e.g., the narrow space between adjacent ribs). This is facilitated by making the disks along the robot's backbone foldable. We also demonstrate that such a robot can feature not only straight, but also curved tendon routing paths, thereby achieving a diverse family of conformations. We find that the foldable robot performs comparably, from a kinematic perspective, to an identical non-folding continuum robot at varying deployment lengths. This work paves the way for future applications with a continuum robot that can fold and fit through smaller openings, with the potential to reduce invasiveness during surgical tasks.
为了实现创建一个具有多个触手状机器人的肺部手术系统这一未来目标，我们提出了一种连续体机器人的新折叠概念，使它们能够挤过比机器人标称直径小的开口（例如相邻肋骨之间的狭窄空间）。这通过使沿机器人主干的圆盘可折叠来实现。我们还证明，这样的机器人不仅可以具有直线的肌腱路由路径，还可以具有弯曲的肌腱路由路径，从而实现多种构型。我们发现，从运动学角度来看，可折叠机器人在不同的展开长度下与相同的不可折叠连续体机器人表现相当。这项工作为未来使用能够折叠并穿过更小开口的连续体机器人的应用铺平了道路，有可能减少手术任务中的侵入性。
