Design and Control of Concentric-Tube Robots

By Pierre E. Dupont, J. Lock, Brandon Itkowitz, E. Butler. IEEE Transactions on robotics, 2010

758 citations recorded by the source corpus.

A novel approach toward construction of robots is based on a concentric combination of precurved elastic tubes. By rotation and extension of the tubes with respect to each other, their curvatures interact elastically to position and orient the robot's tip, as well as to control the robot's shape along its length. In this approach, the flexible tubes comprise both the links and the joints of the robot. Since the actuators attach to the tubes at their proximal ends, the robot itself forms a slender curve that is well suited for minimally invasive medical procedures. This paper demonstrates the potential of this technology. Design principles are presented and a general kinematic model incorporating tube bending and torsion is derived. Experimental demonstration of real-time position control using this model is also described.

Subfields: Biomedical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/2518d6b39387cc6c2ac64b3f921d5e60d544072c

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In Biomedical Engineering

In Mechanical Engineering

Citations in the corpus

A Variable Curvature Continuum Kinematics for Kinematic Control of the Bionic Handling Assistant (2014, methodology): “To achieve the desired manipulator motion, one or more serially connected and individually controlled sections are deformed using actuation principles like tendon drives [3], [4], precurved tubes [7], [8], and fluid-driven muscles or bellows [6], [9].”
An overview of calibration technology of industrial robots (2021, background): “Then, the existing challenges and open problems in robot calibration are discussed [113]–[118].”
A decade retrospective of medical robotics research from 2010 to 2020 (2021, background): “During the 2000s, the concept of concentric tube robots was first introduced, but a more complete description of the design principles and kinematic model for this architecture was finished only in 2010 (62).”
Design and Kinematic Modeling of Constant Curvature Continuum Robots: A Review (2010, background): “For example, if a constant moment is applied along a beam, Bernoulli–Euler beam mechanics predict a constant-curvature result (Gravagne et al. 2003). This is the case for the initial simple models derived for the active cannula design described in Section 3.2.3, in which concentric precurved tubes (”
Continuum Robots for Medical Applications: A Survey (2015, methodology): “Concentric-tube robots are composed of multiple, precurved, elastic tubes that are nested inside of each other [59], [60].”
A Geometrically Exact Model for Externally Loaded Concentric-Tube Continuum Robots (2010, background): “The importance of torsion was also recognized and initially modeled in straight sections of the device [3], [5], before being extended (in closed form) to curved sections in a two-tube cannula [13], [14].”