Electromagnetic Positioning for Tip Tracking and Shape Sensing of Flexible Robots.pdf

IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL, VOL. 15, NO. 8, AUGUST 2015 4565 Electromagnetic Positioning for Tip Tracking and Shape Sensing of Flexible Robots Shuang Song, Zheng Li, Member, IEEE, Haoyong Yu, Member, IEEE, and Hongliang Ren, Member, IEEE Abstract— Wire-driven flexible robots are efficient devices for minimally invasive surgery, since they can work well in complex and confined environments. However, the real-time positional and shape information of the robot cannot be well estimated, especially when there is an unknown payload or force working on the end effector. In this paper, we propose a novel tip tracking and shape sensing method for wire-driven flexible robots. The proposed method is based on the length of each section of the robot as well as the positional and directional information of the distal end of each section of the robot. For each section, an electromagnetic sensor will be mounted at the distal end to estimate the positional and directional information. A reconstruction algorithm, which is based on a three-order Bézier curve, is carried out utilizing the positional and directional information along with the length information of the section. This method provides the advantage of good tracking results and high shape reconstruction accuracy with limited modification to the robot. Compared with other reconstruction methods, no kinematic model is needed for reconstruction. Therefore, this method works well with an unknown payload that applied at the tip of the robot. The feasibility of the proposed method is verified by simulation and experimental results. Index Terms— Bézier curve, electromagnetic tracking, wire-driven flexible robot, shape sensing. I. INTRODUCTION FLEXIBLE robots, such as wire (or tendon or cable) drivenmanipulators [1]–[4] and concentric tube robots [5], [6] have been widely studied for the use in minimally invasive surgery [7]. During a surgical operation, flexible robots may interact with tissue. Tissue will affect the position and shape o