A Soft Pneumatic Two-Degree-of-Freedom Actuator for Endoscopy.

ABSTRACT: The rise of soft robotics opens new opportunities in endoscopy and minimally invasive surgery. Pneumatic catheters offer a promising alternative to conventional steerable catheters for safe navigation through the natural pathways without tissue injury. In this work, we present an optimized 6 mm diameter two-degree-of-freedom pneumatic actuator, able to bend in every direction and incorporating a 1 mm working channel. A versatile vacuum centrifugal overmolding method capable of producing small geometries with a variety of silicones is described, and meter-long actuators are extruded industrially. An improved method for fiber reinforcement is also presented. The actuator achieves bending more than 180° and curvatures of up to 0.1 mm^-1. The exerted force remains below 100 mN, and w

SUBMITTER: Decroly G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8636041 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature