A compact and dexterous magnetic resonance (MR)–safe soft robot enables MR imaging–guided transoral laser microsurgery.

Soft robots, owing to their elastomeric material, ensure safe interaction with their surroundings. These robot compliance properties inevitably impose a trade-off against precise motion control, as to which conventional model-based methods were proposed to approximate the robot kinematics. However, too many parameters, regarding robot deformation and external disturbance, are difficult to obtain, even if possible, which could be very nonlinear. Sensors self-contained in the robot are required to compensate modelling uncertainties and external disturbances. Camera (eye) integrated at the robot end-effector (hand) is a common setting. To this end, we propose an eye-in-hand visual servo that incorporates with learning-based controller to accomplish more precise robotic tasks. Local Gaussian process regression (GPR) is used to initialize and refine the inverse mappings online, without prior knowledge of robot and camera parameters. Experimental validation is also conducted to demonstrate the hyper-elastic low-stiffness robot can compensate an external variable loading during trajectory tracking.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can provide high-quality 3-D visualization of target anatomy, surrounding tissue, and instrumentation, but there are significant challenges in harnessing it for effectively guiding interventional procedures. Challenges include the strong static magnetic field, rapidly switching magnetic field gradients, high-power radio frequency pulses, sensitivity to electrical noise, and constrained space to operate within the bore of the scanner. MRI has a number of advantages over other medical imaging modalities, including no ionizing radiation, excellent soft-tissue contrast that allows for visualization of tumors and other features that are not readily visible by other modalities, true 3-D imaging capabilities, including the ability to image arbitrary scan plane geometry or perform volumetric imaging, and capability for multimodality sensing, including diffusion, dynamic contrast, blood flow, blood oxygenation, temperature, and tracking of biomarkers. The use of robotic assistants within the MRI bore, alongside the patient during imaging, enables intraoperative MR imaging (iMRI) to guide a surgical intervention in a closed-loop fashion that can include tracking of tissue deformation and target motion, localization of instrumentation, and monitoring of therapy delivery. With the ever-expanding clinical use of MRI, MRI-compatible robotic systems have been heralded as a new approach to assist interventional procedures to allow physicians to treat patients more accurately and effectively. Deploying robotic systems inside the bore synergizes the visual capability of MRI and the manipulation capability of robotic assistance, resulting in a closed-loop surgery architecture. This article details the challenges and history of robotic systems intended to operate in an MRI environment and outlines promising clinical applications and associated state-of-the-art MRI-compatible robotic systems and technology for making this possible.

Soft continuum robots have been accepted as a promising category of biomedical robots, accredited to the robots’ inherent compliance that makes them safely interact with their surroundings. In its application of minimally invasive surgery, such a continuum concept shares the same view of robotization for conventional endoscopy/laparoscopy. Different from rigid-link robots with accurate analytical kinematics/dynamics, soft robots encounter modeling uncertainties due to intrinsic and extrinsic factors, which would deteriorate the model-based control performances. However, the trade-off between flexibility and controllability of soft manipulators may not be readily optimized but would be demanded for specific kinds of modeling approaches. To this end, data-driven modeling strategies making use of machine learning algorithms would be an encouraging way out for the control of soft continuum robots. In this article, we attempt to overview the current state of kinematic/dynamic model-free control schemes for continuum manipulators, particularly by learning-based means, and discuss their similarities and differences. Perspectives and trends in the development of new control methods are also investigated through the review of existing limitations and challenges.

Bioinspired robotic structures comprising soft actuation units have attracted increasing research interest. Taking advantage of its inherent compliance, soft robots can assure safe interaction with external environments, provided that precise and effective manipulation could be achieved. Endoscopy is a typical application. However, previous model-based control approaches often require simplified geometric assumptions on the soft manipulator, but which could be very inaccurate in the presence of unmodeled external interaction forces. In this study, we propose a generic control framework based on nonparametric and online, as well as local, training to learn the inverse model directly, without prior knowledge of the robot's structural parameters. Detailed experimental evaluation was conducted on a soft robot prototype with control redundancy, performing trajectory tracking in dynamically constrained environments. Advanced element formulation of finite element analysis is employed to initialize the control policy, hence eliminating the need for random exploration in the robot's workspace. The proposed control framework enabled a soft fluid-driven continuum robot to follow a 3D trajectory precisely, even under dynamic external disturbance. Such enhanced control accuracy and adaptability would facilitate effective endoscopic navigation in complex and changing environments.

In the feature/object tracking of eye-in-hand visual servoing, 2D motion estimation relying only on image plane feedback is easily affected by vision occlusion, blurring, or poor lighting. For the commonly-used template matching method, tracking performance greatly depends on the image quality. Fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs), a type of high-frequency flexible strain sensor, can be used as an assistant device for soft robot control. We propose a method to enhance motion estimation in soft robotic visual servoing by fusing the results from template matching and FBG wavelength shifts to achieve more accurate tracking in applications such as minimally invasive surgery. Path following performance is validated in a simulated laparoscopic scene and LEGO®-constructed scene, demonstrating significant improvement to feature tracking and robot motion, even under external forces.