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:2021:10.1016/j.mechatronics.2021.102573,
author = {Franco, E and Garriga, Casanovas A and Tang, J and Rodriguez, y Baena F and Astolfi, A},
doi = {10.1016/j.mechatronics.2021.102573},
journal = {Mechatronics},
pages = {1--21},
title = {Position regulation in Cartesian space of a class of inextensible soft continuum manipulators with pneumatic actuation},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.mechatronics.2021.102573},
volume = {76},
year = {2021}
}
TY - JOUR
AB - This work investigates the position regulation in Cartesian space of a class of inextensible soft continuum manipulators with pneumatic actuation subject to model uncertainties and to unknown external disturbances that act on the tip. Soft continuum manipulators are characterised by high structural compliance which results in a large number of degrees-of-freedom, only a subset of which can be actuated independently or instrumented with sensors. External disturbances, which are common in many applications, result in uncertain dynamics and in uncertain kinematics thus making the control problem particularly challenging. We have investigated the use of integral action to model the uncertain kinematics of the manipulators, and we have designed a new control law to achieve position regulation in Cartesian space by employing a port-Hamiltonian formulation and a passivity-based approach. In addition, we have compared two adaptive laws that compensate the effects of the external disturbances on the system dynamics. Local stability conditions are discussed with a Lyapunov approach and are related to the controller parameters. The performance of the controller is demonstrated by means of simulations and experiments with two different prototypes.
AU - Franco,E
AU - Garriga,Casanovas A
AU - Tang,J
AU - Rodriguez,y Baena F
AU - Astolfi,A
DO - 10.1016/j.mechatronics.2021.102573
EP - 21
PY - 2021///
SN - 0957-4158
SP - 1
TI - Position regulation in Cartesian space of a class of inextensible soft continuum manipulators with pneumatic actuation
T2 - Mechatronics
UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.mechatronics.2021.102573
UR - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0957415821000635?via%3Dihub
UR - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/89605
VL - 76
ER -
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