Allen Jiang

Design of a variable stiffness flexible manipulator with composite granular jamming and membrane coupling

Robotic manipulators for minimally invasive surgeries have traditionally been rigid, with a steerable end effector. While the rigidity of manipulators improve precision and controllability, it limits reachability and dexterity in constrained environments. Soft manipulators with controllable stiffness on the other hand, can be deployed in single port or natural orifice surgical applications to reach a wide range of areas inside the body, while being able to passively adapt to uncertain external forces, adapt the stiffness distribution to suit the kinematic and dynamic requirements of the task, and provide flexibility for configuration control. Here, we present the design of a snake-like laboratory made soft robot manipulator of 20 mm in average diameter, which can actuate, soften, or stiffen joints independently along the length of the manipulator by combining granular jamming with McKibben actuators. It presents a comprehensive study on the relative contributions of the granule size, material type, and membrane coupling on the range, profile, and variability of stiffness.

Implementation of Tactile Sensing for Palpation in Robot-Assisted Minimally Invasive Surgery: A Review

Robot-assisted minimally invasive surgery (RMIS) made it possible to perform a number of medical manipulations with reduced patient trauma and better accuracy. Various devices, including tactile sensors, have been developed in recent years to enhance the quality of this procedure. The objective of this paper is to review the latest advancements and challenges in the development of tactile sensing devices designed for surgical applications. In particular, the focus is on palpation and probing devices that can be potentially used in RMIS. In addition, we explore the aspects that should be taken into account when designing tactile sensors for RMIS, incorporating biological inspiration of tactile sensing, features of manual palpation, requirements of RMIS. We provide an overview of recommendations for the development of tactile sensing devices, especially in the context of RMIS.

A VARIABLE STIFFNESS JOINT BY GRANULAR JAMMING

We propose a novel, high degree of freedom variable stiffness joint for use in a miniature snake-like robot for minimally invasive surgeries via granular jamming. By pulling granule filled membrane-columns under vacuum, the columns and joint stiffen as the granular matter begin to jam. In our experiments, we achieved a four-fold increase in stiffness, and the stiffness can be achieved while the columns are straight or bent. Current flexible manipulators in industrial and medical robotics have followed two dominating methods of actuation and stiffness control. The first method is the continuum manipulator, which utilizes tendons or rods to bend the manipulator in a continuous fashion. The second method is classified as the highly articulated robot, where the manipulator is comprised of multiple segments linked by motordriven universal joints. Like the latter, our manipulator is highly articulated, however stiffness of each joint can be independently controlled by the granular jamming principle. This paper studies the effect of grain type and vacuum pressure for stiffness tuning. We found that granules with a matte surface were able to achieve higher stiffnesses, with a cube shape exhibiting the highest stiffness, but at the cost of high levels of hysteresis.

Bio-inspired tactile sensor sleeve for surgical soft manipulators

Robotic manipulators for Robot-assisted Minimally Invasive Surgery (RMIS) pass through small incisions into the patients body and interact with soft internal organs. The performance of traditional robotic manipulators such as the da Vinci Robotic System is limited due to insufficient flexibility of the manipulator and lack of haptic feedback. Modern surgical manipulators have taken inspiration from biology e.g. snakes or the octopus. In order for such soft and flexible arms to reconfigure itself and to control its pose with respect to organs as well as to provide haptic feedback to the surgeon, tactile sensors can be integrated with the robots flexible structure. The work presented here takes inspiration from another area of biology: cucumber tendrils have shown to be ideal tactile sensors for the plant that they are associated with providing useful environmental information during the plants growth. Incorporating the sensing principles of cucumber tendrils, we have created miniature sensing elements that can be distributed across the surface of soft manipulators to form a sensor network capable of acquire tactile information. Each sensing element is a retractable hemispherical tactile measuring applied pressure. The actual sensing principle chosen for each tactile makes use of optic fibres that transfer light signals modulated by the applied pressure from the sensing element to the proximal end of the robot arm. In this paper, we describe the design and structure of the sensor system, the results of an analysis using Finite Element Modeling in ABAQUS as well as sensor calibration and experimental results. Due to the simple structure of the proposed tactile sensor element, it is miniaturisable and suitable for MIS. An important contribution of this work is that the developed sensor system can be ”loosely” integrated with a soft arm effectively operating independently of the arm and without affecting the arms motion during bending or elongation.

Magnetic Resonance-Compatible Tactile Force Sensor Using Fiber Optics and Vision Sensor

This paper presents a fiber optic based tactile array sensor that can be employed in magnetic resonance environments. In contrast to conventional sensing approaches, such as resistive or capacitive-based sensing methods, which strongly rely on the generation and transmission of electronics signals, here electromagnetically isolated optical fibers were utilized to develop the tactile array sensor. The individual sensing elements of the proposed sensor detect normal forces; fusing the information from the individual elements allows the perception of the shape of probed objects. Applied forces deform a micro-flexure inside each sensor tactel, displacing a miniature mirror which, in turn, modulates the light intensity introduced by a transmitting fiber connected to a light source at its proximal end. For each tactel, the light intensity is read by a receiving fiber connected directly to a 2-D vision sensor. Computer software, such as MATLAB, is used to process the images received by the vision sensor. The calibration process was conducted by relating the applied forces to the number of activated pixels for each image received from a receiving fiber. The proposed approach allows the concurrent acquisition of data from multiple tactile sensor elements using a vision sensor such as a standard video camera. Test results of force responses and shape detection have proven the viability of this sensing concept.

Novel uniaxial force sensor based on visual information for minimally invasive surgery

This paper presents an innovative approach of utilising visual feedback to determine physical interaction forces with soft tissue during Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS). This novel force sensing device is composed of a linear retractable mechanism and a spherical visual feature. The sensor mechanism can be adapted to endoscopic cameras used in MIS. As the distance between the camera and feature varies due to the sliding joint, interaction forces with anatomical surfaces can be computed based on the visual appearance of the feature in the image. Hence, this device allows the measurement of forces without introducing new stand-alone sensors. A mathematical model was derived based on validation data tests and preliminary experiments were conducted to verify the models accuracy. Experimental results confirm the effectiveness of our vision based approach.

Intra-operative tumour localisation in robot-assisted minimally invasive surgery: A review

Robot-assisted minimally invasive surgery has many advantages compared to conventional open surgery and also certain drawbacks: it causes less operative trauma and faster recovery times but does not allow for direct tumour palpation as is the case in open surgery. This article reviews state-of-the-art intra-operative tumour localisation methods used in robot-assisted minimally invasive surgery and in particular methods that employ force-based sensing, tactile-based sensing, and medical imaging techniques. The limitations and challenges of these methods are discussed and future research directions are proposed.

Pixel-based optical fiber tactile force sensor for robot manipulation

This paper investigates novel tactile sensing concepts of a fiber optic sensor that can be integrated with minimally invasive surgical (MIS) manipulation tools whilst being Magnetic Resonance (MR) compatible. A 3×3 tactile optical fiber sensor was developed, and is able to measure applied normal forces. Forces are converted from the deflections of a set of nine flexures that are connected to a system of mirrors which, in turn, reflect light received from transmitting fibers to detection fibers. The changes in light intensity are ultimately read-out by a camera system. The images received by the camera attached at the end of the detection fibers are then processed on a computer system using Matlab. Employing a calibration process, the applied forces can be related to the number of activated pixels per received fiber image. This system enables an array of tactile flexures to be recorded via a single camera.

Granular Jamming With Hydraulic Control

In the field of soft robotics, granular jamming is a newly adopted variable stiffness mechanism involving the use of vacuum pressure to control soft, particulate matter to become a unified, solid-like structure. However, granular jamming is conventionally controlled with air, which reduces the mobility of the robot. This is because the compressibility of air requires large vacuum pumps or chambers. Instead, we propose the use of an incompressible fluid, such as water, to control the stiffness of the mechanism. This paper presents comparative studies that shows that a hydraulic granular jammed joint using deaired water can both achieve the same stiffness level with just one twentieth of the volume extraction and maintain the same hysteresis level of an air-based system.

Adaptive grip control on an uncertain object

Maintaining the grip on an artery with a pulsating impedance, holding the steering wheel of a vehicle on a bumpy terrain, or holding a live hamster without excessive squeezing may be trivial tasks to most humans. However, a robot will find it very difficult to maintain the grip of such uncertain objects based on real-time feedback control. This paper presents a stochastic control law to maintain the grip on an uncertain object while manipulating against external forces. The radial impedance parameters of the soft object is assumed to undergo Gaussian random variations. Here we demonstrate that the proposed model free grip controller can maintain a safe grip at two diagonally opposite points of the object merely based on the statistics of the normal force. It accomplishes this by computing a probability of grip failure to adapt the compression on the soft object. A novel optimal estimation algorithm that can concurrently estimate the unknown impedance parameters of the object and the states of the coupled dynamic system is discussed as a potential tool to be used in predictive optimal impedance control on uncertain objects. Experimental results on adaptive grip control on a cylindrical tube inflated and deflated with a Gaussian random variation has been presented to validate the algorithm.