Model-based Parameter Selection for a Steerable Continuum Robot - Applications to Bronchoalveolar Lavage (BAL).

ABSTRACT: Bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) is a minimally invasive procedure for diagnosing lung infections and diseases. However, navigating tortuous lung anatomy to the distal branches of the bronchoalveolar tree for adequate sampling using BAL remains challenging. Continuum robots have been used to improve the navigation of guidewires, catheters, and endoscopes and could be applied to the BAL procedure as well. One class of continuum robots is constructed from a notched tube and actuated using a tendon. Many tendon-driven notched continuum robots use uniform machining parameters to achieve approximately constant-curvature configurations, which may be unsuitable for traversing the tortuous anatomy of the lungs. This paper presents a model that predicts the curvature of a robot with arbitrary notch sha

SUBMITTER: Rothe AK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12410826 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature