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

该项目将推进外科应用软骨连续体机器人的建模、控制和传感的基础知识。这些机器人像蛇或触手一样的多功能性提供了更高的灵活性。它们的顺应性使它们特别适合于医疗干预，因为它们安全地符合身体的几何形状，而不会损害周围的组织。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关联的系统，并应用了为可能具有无限可能形状的可变形结构开发的数学技术。不可避免的不确定性的几何和力学性质的生物组织是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通过毫米级无源无线电天线的线性阵列来监控的，类似于零售商店里的RFID标签。这些传感器的不同版本将被探索，不同的能够定位接触点，测量界面力，并估计机器人的形状。该项目还提出了一个开发和验证手术机器人的框架，包括从机器人角度对手术任务进行新的系统分类。这种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，以解决美国对始终如一的高质量和可获得的医疗保健的关键需求。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，并通过实际的工程演示、实践和课程对工程教育产生积极影响。该项目的愿景是为具有复杂组织环境的医疗应用协调设计连续机器人、传感器、环境试验台和验证指标。研究团队将(i)设计可扩展的在线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）开发用于连续体机器人跟踪、形状传感、力估计和通信通道的无线传感技术，以满足医疗连续体机器人和环境的约束。（三）构建一套完整的规范医疗机器人和环境验证平台，以及一套未来医疗连续体机器人技术定量比较的相关指标。这些贡献为在新的组织环境中稳健地实现医疗连续体机器人提供了一种通用的方法。它在不同的机器人硬件和临床任务中具有广泛的适用性。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识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.