11 accepted papers
Inspection of hydraulic structures is crucial for ensuring the reliability and safety of infrastructures. Although underwater manipulators are essential tools, existing systems often lack sufficient compliance and safe interaction capabilities. This study develops a novel underwater manipulator syst…
3D Gaussian Splatting (3DGS) achieves remarkable results in the field of surface reconstruction. However, when Gaussian normal vectors are aligned within the single-view projection plane, while the geometry appears reasonable in the current view, biases may emerge upon switching to nearby views. To
This paper presents the use of a simulation environment as an accurate, ethical, and sustainable alternative to testing robotic prototypes in animal models and simplified phantom models, specifically developed for robotic colonoscopy devices inside the human colon. A virtual simulation of the locomo
Soft-growing robots are emerging with numerous potential applications because of their superior capability of frictionless navigation. However, their success is hindered by their tendency to buckle under the tension required to retract them via inversion. In this paper, we propose a simple and scala…
In traditional endoscopic surgery, the surgeon manipulating the endoscopic instruments is supported by an assistant controlling the endoscope, where their coordination may be affected by communication errors. To address this issue, we introduce a foot interface controlled robotic endoscopic system,
Accurate motion control of surgical robots is critical for the efficiency and safety of both state-of-the-art teleoperated robotic surgery and the ultimate autonomous robotic surgery. However, fine motion control for a flexible endoscopic surgical robot is highly challenging because of the shape-dep…
Perforations in flexible endoscopy are life-threatening. Defect closure or suturing in flexible endoscopy has long been a critical challenge due to the confined space of the access routes and surgical sites, high dexterity and force demands of suturing tasks, as well as critical size and strength re…
We developed a foot interface enabling an operator to control a robotic arm with four degrees of freedom in continuous direction and speed, for operating one of the multiple tools required during robot-aided surgery. In this letter, we first test whether this pedal interface can be used to carry out
When performing some surgical tasks inside colon with NOTES technology, colon tissue could block the task space and occlude the endoscopic vision. In order to solve this problem, we developed a pneumatically driven deployable and undeployable structure which can distend collapsing tissue and can be…
Accurate haptic feedback is a critical challenge for surgical robots, especially for flexible endoscopic surgical robots whose transmission systems are Tendon-Sheath Mechanisms (TSMs) with highly nonlinear friction profiles and force hysteresis. For distal end haptic sensing of TSMs, this paper, for…
Variable stiffness for robotics is attracting increasing attention from researchers in the field of surgical robots. A surgical robot that can access the human colon or stomach via natural orifices must be flexible enough to pass through tortuous paths and to work in a confined space. Meanwhile, the…