Tendon-sheath-driven manipulators (TSM) are widely used in minimally invasive surgical systems due to their long, thin shape, flexibility, and compliance making them easily steerable in narrow or tortuous environments. Many commercial TSM-based medical devices have non-linear phenomena resulting from their composition such as backlash hysteresis and dead zone, which lead to a considerable challenge for achieving precise control of the end effector pose. However, many recent works in the literature do not consider the combined effects and compensation of these phenomena, and less focus on practical ways to identify model parameters in realistic conditions. This paper proposes a simplified piecewise linear model to construct both backlash hysteresis and dead zone compensators together. Further, a practical method is introduced to identify model parameters using motor current from a robotic controller for the TSM. Our proposed methods are validated with multiple Intra-cardiac Echocardiography (ICE) catheters, which are typical commercial example of TSM, by periodic and non-periodic motions. Our results show that the errors from backlash hysteresis and dead zone are considerably reduced and therefore the accuracy of robotic control is improved when applying the presented methods.
Modeling and parametric optimization of 3D tendon-sheath actuator system for upper limb soft exosuit
Indian Institute of Technology Delhi（印度理工学院德里分校）；All India Institute of Medical Sciences（全印度医学科学研究所）；School of Artificial Intelligence, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi（印度理工学院德里分校人工智能学院）
Aerial robotic systems have raised emerging interests in recent years. In this article, we propose a novel aerial manipulator system that is significantly different from conventional aerial discrete manipulators: An Aerial Continuum Manipulator (AeCoM). The AeCoM compactly integrates a quadrotor with a tendon-driven continuum robotic manipulator. Due to the compact design and the payload bearing ability of tendon-driven continuum robotic arms, the proposed system solved the conflict between payload capacity and dexterity lying in conventional aerial manipulators. Two contributions are made in …
Tendon-driven continuum manipulators (TDCM) are commonly used in minimally invasive surgical systems due to their long, thin, flexible structure that is compliant in narrow or tortuous environments. There exist many researches for precise tip control of the articulating section. However, these models do not account for the proximal shaft shape of TDCM, affecting the tip controls in practical settings. In this paper, we propose a gradient-based shift detection method based on motor current that can easily find the offset of task space models (i.e., hysteresis). We analyze our proposed methods w…
Actuation space reduction to facilitate insightful shape matching in a novel reconfigurable tendon driven continuum manipulator
Department of Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign（工业与企业系统工程系，伊利诺伊大学厄巴纳-香槟分校）；Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign（机械科学与工程系，伊利诺伊大学厄巴纳-香槟分校）
In this study, a new position control scheme for the tendon-sheath mechanism (TSM) which is used in flexible medical devices is presented. TSM is widely used in dexterous robotic applications because it can flexibly work in limited space, in constrained environments, and provides efficient power transmission from the external actuator to the distal joint. However, nonlinearities from friction and backlash hysteresis between the tendon and the sheath pose challenges in achieving precise position controls of the end effector. Previous studies on the TSM only address the control problem under the…
A Modular, Tendon Driven Variable Stiffness Manipulator with Internal Routing for Improved Stability and Increased Payload Capacity
National Robotarium（国家机器人研究院）；Heriot Watt University（赫瑞瓦特大学）；Institute for Integrated Micro and Nano Systems（集成微纳系统研究所）；University of Edinburgh（爱丁堡大学）；Tough Cyberphysical AI Research Center (TCPAI)（硬核赛博物理人工智能研究中心）；Tohoku University（东北大学）；Senai Cimatec（塞奈西马泰克）
Computing forward statics from tendon-length in flexible-joint hyper-redundant manipulators
Institute for Integrated Micro and Nano Systems, School of Engineering, University of Edinburgh（整合微纳系统研究所，工程学院，爱丁堡大学）；CREATE Lab, EPFL（EPFL CREATE 实验室）；Institute for Imaging, Data and Communications, School of Engineering, University of Edinburgh（成像、数据与通信研究所，工程学院，爱丁堡大学）
Co-optimizing Physical Reconfiguration Parameters and Controllers for an Origami-inspired Reconfigurable Manipulator
Colorado State University（科罗拉多州立大学）；University of Massachusetts Amherst（马萨诸塞大学阿默斯特分校）；Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences（曼宁信息与计算机科学学院）
ATDM:An Anthropomorphic Aerial Tendon-driven Manipulator with Low-Inertia and High-Stiffness
Research Institute of Intelligent Control and Systems, Harbin Institute of Technology（哈尔滨工业大学智能控制与系统研究所）；Peng Cheng Laboratory（鹏城实验室）；Ningbo Institute of Intelligent Equipment Technology Co., Ltd.（宁波智能装备技术研究院有限公司）
Queensland University of Technology（昆士兰科技大学）；Australian Centre for Robotic Vision（澳大利亚机器人视觉中心）；University of New South Wales（新南威尔士大学）
Tendon-driven snake-like arms have been used to create highly dexterous continuum robots so that they can bend around anatomical obstacles to access clinical targets. In this paper, we propose a design algorithm for developing patient-specific surgical continuum manipulators optimized for oriental dexterity constrained by task-space obstacles. The algorithm uses a sampling-based approach to finding the dexterity distribution in the workspace discretized by voxels. The oriental dexterity measured in the region of interest in the task-space formed a fitness function to be optimized through diffe…
Clinicians require substantial training and experience to become comfortable with steering Intracardiac echocardiography (ICE) catheter to localize and measure the area of treatment to watch for complications while device catheters are deployed in another access. Thus, it is reasonable that a robotic-assist system to hold and actively manipulate the ICE catheter could ease the workload of the physician. Existing commercially-available robotic systems and research prototypes all use existing commercially available ICE catheters based on multiple tendon-sheath mechanism (TSM). To motorize the ex…
AI-Enabled Image-Based Hybrid Vision/Force Control of Tendon-Driven Aerial Continuum Manipulators
Department of Mechanical, Industrial, and Mechatronics Engineering, Toronto Metropolitan University（机械、工业与机电工程系，多伦多 Metropolitan 大学）；Department of Mechanical, Industrial, and Aerospace Engineering (MIAE), Concordia University（机械、工业与航空航天工程系（MIAE），康科迪亚大学）
Time-Division Multiplexing Actuation in Tendon-Driven Arms: Lightweight Design and Fault Tolerance
Shenzhen International Graduate School, Tsinghua University（清华大学深圳国际研究生院）；School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Nanyang Technological University（南洋理工大学机械与航空航天工程学院）；Department of Automation, Tsinghua University（清华大学自动化系）
