Abstract
The soft robot manipulator is attracting attention in the surgical fields with its intrinsic softness, lightness in its weight, and safety toward the human organ. However, it cannot be used widely because of its difficulty of control. To control a soft robot manipulator accurately, shape sensing is essential. This paper presents a method of estimating the shape of a soft robot manipulator by using a skin-type stretchable sensor composed of a multiwalled carbon nanotube (MWCNT) and silicone (p7670). The sensor can be easily fabricated and applied by simply attaching it to the surface of the soft manipulator. In its fabrication, MWCNT is sprayed on a teflon sheet, and liquid-state silicone is poured on it. After curing, we turn it over and cover it with another silicone layer. The sensor is fabricated with a sandwich structure to decrease the hysteresis of the sensor. After calibration and determining the relationship between the resistance of the sensor and the strain, three sensors are attached at 120° intervals. Using the obtained data, the curvature of the manipulator is calculated, and the entire shape is reconstructed. To validate its accuracy, the estimated shape is compared with the camera data. We experiment with three, six, and nine sensors attached, and the result of the error of shape estimation is compared. As a result, the minimum tip position error is approximately 8.9 mm, which corresponded to 4.45% of the total length of the manipulator when using nine sensors.
Highlights
Natural orifice transluminal endoscopic surgery (NOTES) is a new surgical method that has been studied in recent years
We propose a soft stretchable strain sensor composed of silicone and multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) for shape sensing
The stretchability of the sensor allows the sensor to be attached to the surface of the soft manipulator, making it possible to create a hollow in the center of the manipulator, and other surgical tools can be transferred through this hollow
Summary
Natural orifice transluminal endoscopic surgery (NOTES) is a new surgical method that has been studied in recent years. To transfer strain from the continuum manipulator to the sensor, high stiffness of the continuum robot is required This means that the FBG sensor is difficult to adjust in a soft manipulator [17]. Stretchable strain sensors have attracted attention in various applications Their intrinsic flexibility and elasticity allow them to be mounted on human skin or a robot surface. We propose a soft stretchable strain sensor composed of silicone and multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) for shape sensing. The high stretchability of the sensor makes it easy to transfer the strain manipulator to sensors This makes it possible to estimate large deformations of the soft manipulator.
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