The University of Twente is collaborating with Scinvivo and Radboud UMC for a new way of diagnosing prostatic cancer, which should lessen the follow-up tests during the diagnosis. The new diagnosis exists of a robotic scan of the blatter wall with multiple image modalities. This gives the physician the option to switch between image modalities, which gives the physician more insight into the characteristics of a potential tumor.
The robotic system exists of a concentric tube robot. These robots work with multiple tubes inside of each other, rotating and translating axially. Through the axial bending of the different tubes, an energy balance arises, which changes as the individual tubes are rotated and translated. This makes the end-effector can move inside the space.
For this assignment, the focus lies on the development of an actuation unit that can rotate and translate the tubes in the axial direction.