Single-Fiber Optical Frequency Domain Reflectometry (Ofdr) Shape Sensing of Continuum Manipulators With Planar Bending
Mobina Tavangarifard, Wendy Rodriguez Ovalle, Farshid Alambeigi
Abstract
To address the challenges associated with shape sensing of continuum manipulators (CMs) using Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) optical fibers, we present a unique shape sensing assembly utilizing solely a single Optical Frequency Domain Reflectometry (OFDR) fiber attached to a flat nitinol wire (NiTi). Integrating this easy-to-manufacture unique sensor with a long and soft CM with 170 mm length, we performed different experiments to evaluate its C -, J -, and S-shape reconstruction ability. Results demonstrate phenomenal shape reconstruction accuracy for the performed C-shape (<tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$<3.14 ~\text{mm}$</tex> tip error, < 2.54 mm shape error), J-shape (<tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$<1.91 ~\text{mm}$</tex> tip error, <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$<1.11 \mathbf{m m}$</tex> shape error), and S-shape (<tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$<\mathbf{1. 7 4 ~ m m}$</tex> tip error, <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$<\mathbf{1. 4 0 ~ m m}$</tex> shape error) experiments.
BibTeX
@inproceedings{icra2025_singlefiberoptic,
title = {Single-Fiber Optical Frequency Domain Reflectometry (Ofdr) Shape Sensing of Continuum Manipulators With Planar Bending},
author = {Mobina Tavangarifard and Wendy Rodriguez Ovalle and Farshid Alambeigi},
booktitle = {ICRA 2025},
year = {2025}
}