Currently, there is an increasing interest in Minimal Invasive Surgery (MIS) and Natural Orifice Transluminal Surgery (NOTES) [1] regarding the medical field, which in its turn stimulates the improvement of surgical robotics [2]. However, a current limitation of the robotic endoscopic tools is the lack of flexibility in combination with stiffness to operate within the surgical site [1][3]. Developments in soft robotics might overcome these limitations [4], as they are able to become stiff while also having flexible properties.
At the Robotics and Mechatronic group of the University of Twente, a soft robotic endoscope is developed, inspired by the STIFF-FLOP project [5]. To enable proper control of the endoscope, as well as to increase the safety of the trajectory, path planning can be utilized.
This study combines path planning algorithms with the eventual soft robotic endoscope response, with as main objective to increase the safety during the operation. Several aspects are included, such as a new design of the modules, the bending characterization, a bending module model, implementation of algorithms to simulate the endoscope and combining simulation with characterization to develop the physical endoscope controller. The performance of the path planned endoscope is compared against the manual insertion, in terms of speed, trajectory and number of collisions.
The presentation will discuss these stages throughout the research, together with their corresponding results.
