EFRI C3 SoRo: Safe Medical Continuum Robots: Sensing, Control and Fabrication

该项目将推进用于手术应用的软骨架连续体机器人的建模、控制和传感的基础知识。这些机器人的蛇形或触手状多功能性提供了增强的灵活性。它们的顺应性使它们特别适合医疗干预，因为它们安全地符合身体的几何形状，而不会损伤周围组织。建模和控制方法是创新的，因为它将机器人和周围组织视为一个相互连接的系统，并应用为可变形结构开发的数学技术，这些结构可能具有无限多的可能形状。不可避免的不确定性的几何形状和力学性能的生物组织严格解决使用概率在线，无模型学习。机器人在体内的运动是使用毫米级无源无线电天线的线性阵列来监测的，类似于零售店中的RFID标签。这些传感器的不同版本将被探索，不同的定位接触点，测量界面力，并估计机器人的形状。该项目还提出了一个框架，用于开发和验证手术机器人，包括从机器人的角度对手术任务进行新的系统分类。这一跨学科的努力结合了控制理论，无线通信，以人为本的设计和医学，以满足美国对一致的高质量和可获得的医疗保健的迫切需求。项目活动将有助于扩大代表性不足的群体在研究中的参与，并通过实际工程演示、实践和课程对工程教育产生积极影响。项目愿景是协调设计连续体机器人、传感器、环境试验台和复杂组织环境下医疗应用的验证指标。该研究团队将（i）设计可扩展和在线的基于模型和无模型的自适应控制方法，将机器人和组织环境视为一个紧密耦合，可识别和可控的系统，（ii）开发无线传感技术，用于连续体机器人跟踪，形状传感，力估计和满足医疗连续体机器人和环境约束的通信通道，以及（iii）建立一套全面的标准医疗机器人和环境验证平台，以及一套用于未来医疗连续体机器人技术定量比较的相关指标。这些贡献提供了一个通用的方法，在新的组织环境中的医疗连续体机器人的鲁棒实施。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project will advance fundamental knowledge for modeling, control, and sensing of soft-backboned continuum robots for surgical applications. The snake-like or tentacle-like versatility of these robots provides enhanced dexterity. Their compliant nature makes them especially well-suited for medical interventions, because they safely conform to the geometry of the body rather than damaging surrounding tissue. The modeling and control approach is innovative because it treats the robot and surrounding tissue as an interconnected system, and applies mathematical techniques developed for deformable structures that may take an infinite number of possible shapes. Inevitable uncertainties about the geometry and mechanical properties of biological tissue are rigorously addressed using probabilistic on-line, model-free learning. Movement of the robot inside the body is monitored using a linear array of millimeter-scale passive radio antennas, similar to the RFID tags found in retail stores. Different versions of these sensors will be explored, variously capable of locating contact points, measuring interface forces, and estimating the shape of the robot. The project also presents a framework for development and validation of surgical robots, including a new systematic classification of surgical tasks from a robotic perspective. This interdisciplinary effort combines control theory, wireless communication, human-centered design, and medicine to address a critical need for consistent high-quality and accessible healthcare in the US. Project activities will help broaden the participation of underrepresented groups in research and positively impact engineering education with hands-on engineering demonstrations, practices, and lessons.The project vision is a coordinated design of continuum robots, sensors, environment testbeds, and validation metrics for medical applications with their complex tissue environments. The research team will (i) design scalable and online model-based and model-free adaptive control approaches that consider the robot-and-tissue environment as a tightly coupled, identifiable, and controllable system, (ii) develop wireless sensing technology for continuum robot tracking, shape sensing, force estimation, and communication channels that meet the constraints of medical continuum robots and environments, and (iii) build a comprehensive set of canonical medical robot and environment validation platforms, and a set of relevant metrics for quantitative comparisons of future medical continuum robot technologies. These contributions offer a generalized approach for robust implementation of medical continuum robots in new tissue environments. It has broad applicability across different robot hardware and clinical tasks.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.