Related papers: Optimal Dexterity for a Snake-like Surgical Manipu…
Miniaturized instruments are highly needed for robot assisted medical healthcare and treatment, especially for less invasive surgery as it empowers more flexible access to restricted anatomic intervention. But the robotic design is more…
This paper explores the possibility of improving bilateral robot manipulation task performance through optimizing the robot morphology and configuration of the system through motion. To optimize the design for different scenarios, we select…
To economically deploy robotic manipulators the programming and execution of robot motions must be swift. To this end, we propose a novel, constraint-based method to intuitively specify sequential manipulation tasks and to compute…
Tendon-driven hand orthoses have advantages over exoskeletons with respect to wearability and safety because of their low-profile design and ability to fit a range of patients without requiring custom joint alignment. However, no existing…
Soft robot serial chain manipulators with the capability for growth, stiffness control, and discrete joints have the potential to approach the dexterity of traditional robot arms, while improving safety, lowering cost, and providing an…
In the design stage of robotic hands, it is not straightforward to quantitatively evaluate the effect of phalanx length ratios on dexterity without defining specific objects or manipulation tasks. Therefore, this study presents a framework…
A hybrid continuum robot design is introduced that combines a proximal tendon-actuated section with a distal telescoping section comprised of permanent-magnet spheres actuated using an external magnet. While, individually, each section can…
In this study, a new position control scheme for the tendon-sheath mechanism (TSM) which is used in flexible medical devices is presented. TSM is widely used in dexterous robotic applications because it can flexibly work in limited space,…
Continuum robots enable dexterous manipulation in constrained environments, but require accurate and efficient models for real-time manipulation and control. Traditional physics-based models can be computationally expensive and may suffer…
Snake robots have been studied for decades with the aim of achieving biological snakes' fluent locomotion. Yet, as of today, their locomotion remains far from that of the biological snakes. Our recent study suggested that snake locomotion…
Parameterizing finger rolling and finger-object contacts in a differentiable manner is important for formulating dexterous manipulation as a trajectory optimization problem. In contrast to previous methods which often assume simplified…
Training agents to autonomously learn how to use anthropomorphic robotic hands has the potential to lead to systems capable of performing a multitude of complex manipulation tasks in unstructured and uncertain environments. In this work, we…
While multi-joint continuum robots are highly dexterous and flexible, designing an optimal robot can be challenging due to its kinematics involving curvatures. Hence, the current work presents a computational method developed to find…
This paper focuses on the optimal design of a tendon-driven continuum robot (TDCR) based on its feasible static workspace (FSW). The TDCR under consideration is a two-segment robot driven by eight tendons, with four tendon actuators per…
Tendon-driven robots, a type of continuum robot, have the potential to reduce the invasiveness of surgery by enabling access to difficult-to-reach anatomical targets. In the future, the automation of surgical tasks for these robots may help…
Snake robots offer considerable potential for endoscopic interventions due to their ability to follow curvilinear paths. Telemanipulation is an open problem due to hyper-redundancy, as input devices only allow a specification of six degrees…
Dynamic motions are a key feature of robotic arms, enabling them to perform tasks quickly and efficiently. Soft continuum manipulators do not currently consider dynamic parameters when operating in task space. This shortcoming makes…
Robotic assistance in minimally invasive surgery can greatly enhance surgical precision and reduce surgeon fatigue. This paper presents a focused investigation on the kinematic and ergonomic design principles for a laparoscopic surgical…
The design of soft robots is still commonly driven by manual trial-and-error approaches, requiring the manufacturing of multiple physical prototypes, which in the end, is time-consuming and requires significant expertise. To reduce the…
Underactuated manipulators reduce the number of bulky motors, thereby enabling compact and mechanically robust designs. However, fewer actuators than joints means that the manipulator can only access a specific manifold within the joint…