Co-Planar Stereotaxic Atlas of the Human Brain—3-Dimensional Proportional System: An Approach to Cerebral Imaging, J. Talairach, P. Tournoux. Georg Thieme Verlag, New York (1988), 122 pp., 130 figs. DM 268

In this paper, we describe the state of the art in continuum robot manipulators and systems intended for application to interventional medicine. Inspired by biological trunks, tentacles, and snakes, continuum robot designs can traverse confined spaces, manipulate objects in complex environments, and conform to curvilinear paths in space. In addition, many designs offer inherent structural compliance and ease of miniaturization. After decades of pioneering research, a host of designs have now been investigated and have demonstrated capabilities beyond the scope of conventional rigid-link robots. Recently, we have seen increasing efforts aimed at leveraging these qualities to improve the frontiers of minimally invasive surgical interventions. Several concepts have now been commercialized, which are inspiring and enabling a current paradigm shift in surgical approaches toward flexible access routes, e.g., through natural orifices such as the nose. In this paper, we provide an overview of the current state of this field from the perspectives of both robotics science and medical applications. We discuss relevant research in design, modeling, control, and sensing for continuum manipulators, and we highlight how this work is being used to build robotic systems for specific surgical procedures. We provide perspective for the future by discussing current limitations, open questions, and challenges.

Continuum Robots for Medical Applications: A Survey

Small-scale soft continuum robots capable of active steering and navigation in a remotely controllable manner hold great promise in diverse areas, particularly in medical applications. Existing continuum robots, however, are often limited to millimeter or centimeter scales due to miniaturization challenges inherent in conventional actuation mechanisms, such as pulling mechanical wires, inflating pneumatic or hydraulic chambers, or embedding rigid magnets for manipulation. In addition, the friction experienced by the continuum robots during navigation poses another challenge for their applications. Here, we present a submillimeter-scale, self-lubricating soft continuum robot with omnidirectional steering and navigating capabilities based on magnetic actuation, which are enabled by programming ferromagnetic domains in its soft body while growing hydrogel skin on its surface. The robot's body, composed of a homogeneous continuum of a soft polymer matrix with uniformly dispersed ferromagnetic microparticles, can be miniaturized below a few hundreds of micrometers in diameter, and the hydrogel skin reduces the friction by more than 10 times. We demonstrate the capability of navigating through complex and constrained environments, such as a tortuous cerebrovascular phantom with multiple aneurysms. We further demonstrate additional functionalities, such as steerable laser delivery through a functional core incorporated in the robot's body. Given their compact, self-contained actuation and intuitive manipulation, our ferromagnetic soft continuum robots may open avenues to minimally invasive robotic surgery for previously inaccessible lesions, thereby addressing challenges and unmet needs in healthcare.

Ferromagnetic soft continuum robots

IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) におけるフルードパワー技術の研究動向

https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jsprs1975/37/6/37_6_39/_pdf

1998 IEEE International Conference on SMCに参加して

Background
Pose optimization and port placement are critical issues for preoperative preparation in robot-assisted minimally invasive surgery (RMIS), and affect the robot performance and surgery quality.

Methods
This paper proposes a method for pose optimization and port placement for RMIS in cholecystectomy that considers both the robot and surgery requirements. The robot pose optimization was divided into optimization of the positioning joint configuration and optimization of the end effector configuration. To determine the optimal location for the trocar port placement, the operational workspace was defined as the evaluation index. The port area was divided into many sub-areas, and that with the maximum operational workspace was selected as the location for the port placement.

Results
Considering the left robotic arm as an example, the location for the port placement and joints angles for robotic arm configuration were discussed and simulated using the proposed method.

Conclusion
This research can provide guidelines for surgeons in preoperative preparation.

Pose optimization and port placement for robot-assisted minimally invasive surgery in cholecystectomy

A force servo based impedance controller that allows compliant behaviours of the leg of a hydraulic legged robot has been presented in this paper. A novel velocity compensation algorithm which makes for elimination of the redundant forces is also included. Their performance is assessed on a 2-DOF hydraulic leg whose kinematics and transfer functions have been modeled. A double hydraulic cylinders experiment platform is designed for performance testing of the force tracking of the hydraulic actuators. Experimental results have shown a good performance of the impedance controller which allows arbitrary virtual stiffness and damping of the leg.

Research on impedance control based on force servo for single leg of hydraulic legged robot

Purpose




The purpose of this paper is to develop a vision-based dual-arm cyclic motion method, focusing on solving the problems of an uncertain grasp position of the object and the dual-arm joint-angle-drift phenomenon.




Design/methodology/approach




A novel cascade control structure is proposed which associates an adaptive neural network with kinematics redundancy optimization. A radial basis function (RBF) neural network in conjunction with a conventional proportional–integral (PI) controller is applied to compensate for the uncertainty of the image Jacobian matrix which includes the estimated grasp position. To avoid the joint-angle-drift phenomenon, a dual neural network (DNN) solver in conjunction with a PI controller and dual-arm-coordinated constraints is applied to optimize the closed-chain kinematics redundancy.




Findings




The proposed method was implemented on an industrial robotic MOTOMAN with two 7-degrees of freedom robotic arms. Two experiments of carrying a tray repeatedly and turning a steering wheel were carried out, and the results indicate that the closed-trajectories tracking is achieved successfully both in the image plane and the joint spaces with the uncertain grasp position, which validates the accuracy and realizability of the proposed PI-RBF-DNN control strategy.




Originality/value




The adaptive neural network visual servoing method is applied to the dual-arm cyclic motion with the uncertain grasp position of the object. The proposed method enhances the environmental adaptability of a dual-arm robot in a practical manipulation task.

Adaptive neural network visual servoing of dual-arm robot for cyclic motion

This paper proposes a new robotic rehabilitation training platform that is motivated by the requirement for adjusting the training strategy and intensity in a patient-specific manner. The platform is implemented for tele-rehabilitation and is comprised of a haptic device operated by therapists, a lightweight exoskeleton worn by patients and a visually shared model. Through the visually shared model, the motion of the therapist and patient are measured and mapped to the motion of the corresponding object. Thus, the force generated by the therapist can be transferred to the patient for delivering training, while real-time force feedback with high transparency can be provided to the therapist so they know the amount of force being applied to patients in real time. In particular, both assistive therapy in the early stages and resistive therapy in the later stages of stroke can be performed. The home-use exoskeleton device is specifically designed to be light-weight and compliant for safety. The patient-exoskeleton and therapist-haptic interaction performance is evaluated by observing the muscle activities and interaction force. Two volunteers were requested to imitate the process of the therapist-in-the-loop training to evaluate the proposed platform.

A Telepresence System for Therapist-in-the-Loop Training for Elbow Joint Rehabilitation

Background

The pedunculopontine nucleus (PPN) is a new promising target of deep brain stimulation (DBS) for the treatment of Parkinson's disease. This study was to develop a method of computer-assisted automatic localization of the PPN in T1-weighted MR images.



Methods

A 3D template of a segment of the brainstem containing the PPN was constructed. A knowledge-based, hierarchical method of template-to-subject registration was proposed to register the template to the subject's data to locate the subject's PPN.



Results

Experiments were performed with both T1-weighted and proton density MR images acquired from 12 people. Preliminary results show that the proposed method can locate the PPN with an error of 1.83 ± 0.42 mm for its rostral pole and 1.57 ± 0.34 mm for its caudal pole.



Conclusion

The proposed method is automatic, robust and accurate in the localization of the PPN, which demonstrates utility for preoperative surgical planning. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Yili Fu

Papers

Pose optimization and port placement for robot-assisted minimally invasive surgery in cholecystectomy

Research on impedance control based on force servo for single leg of hydraulic legged robot

Adaptive neural network visual servoing of dual-arm robot for cyclic motion

A Telepresence System for Therapist-in-the-Loop Training for Elbow Joint Rehabilitation

Computer-assisted automatic localization of the human pedunculopontine nucleus in T1-weighted MR images: a preliminary study.