Fiber-reinforced soft polymeric manipulator with smart motion scaling and stiffness tunability
Junshi Zhang, Lei Liu, Yuyu Chen, Mingliang Zhu, Liling Tang, Chao Tang, Jun Shintake, Junjie Zhao, Jiankang He, Xiaoyong Ren, Pengfei Li, Qiang Huang, Huichan Zhao, Jian Lü, Dichen Li
Abstract
Minimally invasive surgery (MIS) is emerging as a burgeoning mode of medical treatment and is widely adopted in practical clinical operations. Here, we report a soft manipulator that can actively deform and navigate through a narrow and constrained environment. Stiffness tunability, tremor filtration, and motion scaling capabilities are incorporated to ensure the position and posture of the manipulator during operation. Based on teleoperation through a handle shank, we demonstrate the capability of navigating through a complex, constrained, and narrow space of the human skeleton. By attaching a camera and syringe needle at the front tip of the soft manipulator, the capability of acupuncture treatment and in vivo drug delivery in a medical mannequin is further demonstrated. Finally, autonomous recognition and tracking systems are developed to ensure the surgeon can effortlessly teleoperate the soft manipulator to enter the human body.