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

与传统手术相比，机器人设备可以让医生直观地控制手术工具在体内的精确运动，同时需要更小的切口，对健康组织的损害也更小。如今，这种手术机器人的使用减少了患者的恢复时间，减少了创伤，并在越来越多的手术中降低了成本。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有限的灵活性，低强度和相对较大尺寸的阻碍，特别是对于需要在难以进入的高度受限空间内进行操作的程序。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众健康。这将使新的机器人手术和现有的机器人手术更有效地进行，从而使广泛的患者群体受益。除了这些医疗效益之外，该研究还将通过制造出可以与人类一起工作的机器人，从而为制造业和服务业服务，因为它们的轻量化、柔顺的结构具有固有的安全性。教育活动与研究相结合，这将有助于扩大代表性不足的群体参与工程研究，通过为高中生提供动手机器人设计挑战。该项目将解决由多个独立弯曲的柔性腿组成的平行连续机械臂的设计、综合、建模和控制的主要机器人问题。项目的成功完成将包括：(1)设计和建造两个测试平台系统原型，(2)实验验证，基于机械的机械臂运动学和静力学建模框架，(3)一套由基于模型的工作空间，灵活性和刚度分析驱动的设计指南，以及(4)通过远程操作演示的运动学控制方法，以安全的人机交互完成灵巧任务。这项研究将把机器人的两个先前分离的领域，即并联机械臂和连续机械臂统一起来。它将通过实现一类混合型操纵器，并提供一个基于模型的框架来理解它们的行为、设计和控制它们，从而推进这两个领域的知识。该项目还将代表大挠度Cosserat-rod理论（最近才被引入机器人社区）在并联机器人中的首次应用。通过回答这个新领域的基本机器人问题，将为研究人员在微创机器人手术和人机交互方面取得进一步进展提供有用的知识和工具。

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.