NRI: Flexible Multi-Leg Robots for Safe Interaction and Surgical Dexterity

机器人设备可以让医生直观地指挥手术工具在体内的精确运动，同时需要比传统手术小得多的切口和对健康组织的损伤。 如今，这种手术机器人的使用减少了患者的恢复时间，创伤和越来越多的手术成本。 然而，机器人技术在外科手术中的影响仍然受到当前机器人工具的有限灵活性、低强度和相对大尺寸的阻碍，特别是对于需要在难以进入的高度受限空间内操作的手术。 该奖项支持基础机器人研究，通过为微创手术创造更小，更强，更灵巧的机器人工具来改善公共健康。 这将使新的手术能够机器人进行，现有的机器人手术能够更有效地进行，从而使广泛的患者群体受益。 除了这些医疗益处之外，该研究还将通过创造能够与人类一起工作的机器人来服务于制造业和服务业，由于其重量轻，结构顺从，具有固有的安全性。 教育活动与研究相结合，这将有助于扩大在工程研究中的代表性不足的群体通过动手机器人设计的挑战，为高中生的参与。该项目将解决的设计综合，建模和控制的并联连续体机械手的多个灵活的腿，每个独立的弯曲的主要机器人问题。该项目的成功完成将包括（1）设计和建造两个测试台系统原型，（2）经过实验验证的、基于力学的机械手运动学和静力学建模框架，（3）一套由模型驱动的设计指南工作空间、灵巧性和刚度的基于模型的分析，和（4）运动控制方法证明了遥操作，以完成灵巧的任务与安全的人的互动。 这项研究将统一两个以前独立的机器人领域，即并联机械手和连续机械手。它将通过实现一个混合类的机械手，并提供一个基于模型的框架来理解他们的行为，设计他们，并控制他们，从而提高这两个领域的知识。该项目还将代表大挠度Cosserat杆理论（最近才被引入机器人界）的首次应用于并联机器人。通过回答这个新领域的基本机器人问题，研究人员将获得一系列有用的知识和工具，以进一步推动微创机器人手术和人机交互。

Robotic devices can allow doctors to intuitively command precise motions of surgical tools within the body while requiring much smaller incisions and less damage to healthy tissue than conventional surgery. Today, the use of such surgical robots has reduced patient recovery times, trauma, and costs in an increasing number of procedures. However, the impact of robotics in surgery remains hindered by the limited dexterity, low strength, and relatively large size of current robotic tools, especially for procedures which require operation within highly confined spaces that are difficult to access. This award supports fundamental robotics research that will improve public health by creating smaller, stronger, and more dexterous robotic tools for minimally invasive surgery. This will benefit broad patient populations by enabling new procedures to be performed robotically and existing robotic procedures to be performed more efficiently. Beyond these medical benefits, the research will also serve the manufacturing and service industries by creating robots that can work alongside humans with inherent safety due to their lightweight, compliant structure. Educational activities are integrated with the research which will help broaden the participation of underrepresented groups in engineering research through hands-on robot design challenges for high school students.The project will address the primary robotics questions of design synthesis, modeling, and control for parallel continuum manipulators comprised of multiple flexible legs which each bend independently. Successful completion of the project will include (1) design and construction of two testbed system prototypes, (2) an experimentally validated, mechanics-based modeling framework for manipulator kinematics and statics, (3) a set of design guidelines driven by model-based analysis of workspace, dexterity, and stiffness, and (4) a kinematic control approach demonstrated by teleoperation to complete dexterous tasks with safe human interaction. This research will unify two previously separate fields of robotics, namely parallel manipulators and continuum manipulators. It will advance knowledge in both fields by realizing a hybrid class of manipulators and providing a model-based framework for understanding their behavior, designing them, and controlling them. The project will also represent the first application of large-deflection Cosserat-rod theory (which has only recently been introduced to the robotics community) to parallel robots. By answering the fundamental robotics questions in this new area, a body of useful knowledge and tools will be made available for researchers to make further advances in minimally invasive robotic surgery and human-robot interaction.