A Novel Distal Hybrid Pneumatic/Cable?Driven Continuum Joint with Variable Stiffness Capacity for Flexible Gastrointestinal Endoscopy

The robot-assisted flexible access surgery represented by the emerging endoscopy (FE) and natural orifice transluminal endoscopic demands continuum manipulators instead of rigid straight instruments in traditional minimally invasive (MIS). These are required to advance through tortuous narrow anatomic paths via orifices for dexterous diagnostic examination therapeutic operations. Therefore, developing with capacity snake-like movements variable stiffness regulation operations address these surgical difficulties is demanding but remains challenging. To such challenges, herein, it proposed that a novel distal joint based on hybrid pneumatic cable-driven approach achieves capacity, excellent bending characteristics both states, satisfactory motion consistency shape-locking ability during rigid-flexible transition, relatively high loading gastrointestinal robots. Characterization experiments validate performances, phantom ex vivo have been performed demonstrate feasibility effectiveness FE. presented method demonstrates an effective practical enabling robots tunable supports convenient extension MIS applications.