In this section
Soft and flexible robotic systems for affordable healthcare.
Our research investigates fundamental aspects of control of soft and flexible robots for surgery. These include harnessing the intrinsic compliance of soft robots, rejecting disturbances that characterise the surgical environment, and complying with stringent safety requirements. Our ambition is to provide affordable robotic solutions for a range of surgical applications, including endoscopy, percutaneous intervention, and multi-handed surgery.
Robotics for healthcare is one of the fastest growing segments in the global robotics market. However, conventional surgical robots are unaffordable in low-resource settings. Harnessing the potential of soft and flexible robots can contribute to making surgery safter, more accurate, and more accessible in low-middle income countries. These are pressing needs due to the aging population, and to the growing workforce crisis in the healthcare market.
Our work aims to improve accuracy, reduce the risk of injury, and reduce discomfort in percutaneous interventions such as biopsy, in diagnostic and interventional endoscopy, and in multi-handed surgery.
Dr Enrico Franco
Lecturer
@article{Franco:2021:10.1177/0278364920907679,
author = {Franco, E and Garriga, Casanovas A},
doi = {10.1177/0278364920907679},
journal = {International Journal of Robotics Research},
pages = {236--255},
title = {Energy shaping control of soft continuum manipulators with in-plane disturbances},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0278364920907679},
volume = {40},
year = {2021}
}
TY - JOUR
AB - Soft continuum manipulators offer levels of compliance and inherent safety that can render thema superior alternative to conventional rigid robotsfor a variety of tasks, such as medical interventions or human-robot interaction. However, the ability of soft continuum manipulators to compensate external disturbances need to be further enhanced to meet the stringent requirements of many practical applications.In this paper, we investigate the control problem forsoft continuum manipulators that consist of one inextensible segmentof constant section, which bends under the effect of the internal pressure and is subject to unknown disturbances acting in the plane of bending. A rigid-link model of the manipulatorwith a single input pressureis employed for control purposes and an energy-shaping approach isproposedto derive thecontrol law. A method for the adaptive estimation of disturbances is detailed and a disturbance compensation strategy is proposed.Finally, the effectiveness of the controlleris demonstrated with simulations and with experiments on an inextensible soft continuum manipulator that employs pneumatic actuation.
AU - Franco,E
AU - Garriga,Casanovas A
DO - 10.1177/0278364920907679
EP - 255
PY - 2021///
SN - 0278-3649
SP - 236
TI - Energy shaping control of soft continuum manipulators with in-plane disturbances
T2 - International Journal of Robotics Research
UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0278364920907679
UR - https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0278364920907679
UR - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/77345
VL - 40
ER -
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