Thoracic surgical approaches have evolved from traditional open surgery to minimally invasive surgery (MIS). Within the field of MIS, recent advances concerning endoscopic approaches have been investigated. Flexible or rigid manipulators can be used to assist in, or perform endoscopic surgery.
As it can be imagined, flexible manipulators greatly increase the surgeon's range of motion and dexterity. During this assignment, such a small-diameter flexible manipulator will be designed. It will consist of multiple stacked modules (a total of four modules is envisioned), which are individually actuated using tendons to achieve bending around the two perpendicular radial axes. Two manipulator designs are possible, one being a continuum robot ("infinite-DOF"), and the other approximating a continuum robot ("many-DOF").
In literature, manipulator deformation due to gravity is typically neglected. While single-module manipulators may not be severely influenced by gravity, long and slender multimodule manipulators may more significantly suffer from instabilities, depending on the manipulator’s spatial configuration. For this matter, a mechanics model based on Cosserat Rod theory will be implemented for a multimodule manipulator, which will be able to compensate for gravity and other external loads that may arise when navigating the endoscope during a clinical intervention.