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{Bastos:2023:10.1002/rnc.6598,
author = {Bastos, G and Franco, E},
doi = {10.1002/rnc.6598},
journal = {International Journal of Robust and Nonlinear Control},
title = {Dynamic tube model predictive control for a class of soft manipulators with fluidic actuation},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/rnc.6598},
year = {2023}
}
TY - JOUR
AB - Controlling soft continuum manipulators is a challenging task due to the structural compliance of these systems which results in underactuation. While a variety of control approaches have been proposed for regulation tasks, tracking control requires further investigation. To this end, a new dynamic tube-Model Predictive Control formulation is presented, which includes an ancillary control law constructed analytically with an energy-shaping approach. Two different models are considered: (i) a rigid-link model with direct-torque actuation, which is representative of miniature soft continuum manipulators supplied by digital pressure regulators; (ii) an extended model that includes the pressure dynamics of the fluid, which is representative of fluidic actuation by means of a variable flow rate. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is demonstrated with numerical simulations considering bounded external disturbances, either constant or time-varying.
AU - Bastos,G
AU - Franco,E
DO - 10.1002/rnc.6598
PY - 2023///
SN - 1049-8923
TI - Dynamic tube model predictive control for a class of soft manipulators with fluidic actuation
T2 - International Journal of Robust and Nonlinear Control
UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/rnc.6598
UR - https://www.webofscience.com/api/gateway?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000913868800001&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=a2bf6146997ec60c407a63945d4e92bb
UR - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/rnc.6598
UR - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/102698
ER -
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