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Soft Robotics and Applied Control

Soft and flexible robotic systems for affordable healthcare.

Head of Group

B414B Bessemer Building
South Kensington Campus

What we do

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.

Why it is important?

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.

How can it benefit patients?

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

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Franco:2022:10.1109/LCSYS.2022.3175385,
author = {Franco, E},
doi = {10.1109/LCSYS.2022.3175385},
journal = {IEEE Control Systems Letters},
pages = {2689--2694},
title = {Model based eversion control of soft growing robots with pneumatic actuation},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/LCSYS.2022.3175385},
volume = {6},
year = {2022}
}

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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - This letter investigates the model based position control of soft growing robots with pneumatic actuation that extend according to the principle known as eversion. A dynamical model of the system which accounts for the energy of the ideal gas is presented by employing the port-Hamiltonian formulation. A new control law is constructed with an energy shaping approach. An adaptive observer is employed to compensate the effect of external forces, including that of gravity. Numerical simulations indicate that the proposed controller is superior to simpler energy shaping algorithms.
AU  - Franco,E
DO  - 10.1109/LCSYS.2022.3175385
EP  - 2694
PY  - 2022///
SN  - 2475-1456
SP  - 2689
TI  - Model based eversion control of soft growing robots with pneumatic actuation
T2  - IEEE Control Systems Letters
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/LCSYS.2022.3175385
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/97371
VL  - 6
ER  -

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