In this section

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

@inproceedings{Franco:2014:10.1109/AIM.2014.6878158,
author = {Franco, E and Ristic, M},
doi = {10.1109/AIM.2014.6878158},
pages = {683--689},
publisher = {IEEE},
title = {Time delay controller for the position control of a MRI-compatible pneumatic actuation with long supply lines},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/AIM.2014.6878158},
year = {2014}
}

Download

RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - Pneumatic actuation with long supply lines is widely employed in robotic devices operating in the Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) environment because it produces minimum alteration to the magnetic field. However the high friction of the cylinders and the delay introduced by the pipes make accurate position control challenging. This work presents design and control of an MRI-compatible pneumatic actuation that employs a commercially available, plastic cylinder and long supply lines connecting with the control hardware located outside the magnet room. The system has been designed to actuate a MRI-compatible needle-guiding robot intended for MRI-guided intervention of liver tumors. Accurate position control is achieved with a new Time Delay Control (TDC) scheme that includes a saturation function. The controller requires limited knowledge of the system's parameters and does not rely on pressure or force measurements. Simulation results and experiments demonstrate the advantages of the proposed controller over existing TDC schemes. The MRI-compatibility of the pneumatic actuation is verified in a 3T MRI scanner.
AU  - Franco,E
AU  - Ristic,M
DO  - 10.1109/AIM.2014.6878158
EP  - 689
PB  - IEEE
PY  - 2014///
SN  - 2159-6255
SP  - 683
TI  - Time delay controller for the position control of a MRI-compatible pneumatic actuation with long supply lines
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/AIM.2014.6878158
UR  - http://gateway.webofknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000346499600114&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=1ba7043ffcc86c417c072aa74d649202
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/54134
ER  -

Download