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
@inproceedings{Treratanakulchai:2024:10.1109/ICARA60736.2024.10552957,
author = {Treratanakulchai, S and Garriga-Casanovas, A and Borvorntanajanya, K and Franco, E and Baena, FR},
doi = {10.1109/ICARA60736.2024.10552957},
pages = {12--17},
title = {A Novel Soft Robotic Manipulator Design with Zig-zag Chamber Geometry},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/ICARA60736.2024.10552957},
year = {2024}
}
TY - CPAPER
AB - The development of soft robots has advanced rapidly in recent years. However, most designs present significant non-linearities and deviate from the desired bending direction in an unpredictable manner. This makes accurate control more difficult. In this paper, we present a novel design of a soft robotic manipulator with zig-zag partition walls, which minimize those deviations. We first outline the design and describe a lost wax manufacturing process for complex geometries. We then report experiments to evaluate the bending characteristics, force, and repeatability of the prototype, and we compare it against an existing design. The results show a significant improvement in bending consistency with minimal deviations.
AU - Treratanakulchai,S
AU - Garriga-Casanovas,A
AU - Borvorntanajanya,K
AU - Franco,E
AU - Baena,FR
DO - 10.1109/ICARA60736.2024.10552957
EP - 17
PY - 2024///
SP - 12
TI - A Novel Soft Robotic Manipulator Design with Zig-zag Chamber Geometry
UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/ICARA60736.2024.10552957
ER -
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