Millimeter‐Scale Soft Continuum Robots for Large‐Angle and High‐Precision Manipulation by Hybrid Actuation
Developing small‐scale soft continuum robots with large‐angle steering capacity and high‐precision manipulation offers broad opportunities in various biomedical settings. However, existing continuum robots reach the bottleneck in actuation on account of the contradiction among small size, compliance...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Wiley
2021-02-01
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| Series: | Advanced Intelligent Systems |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1002/aisy.202000189 |
| _version_ | 1818923426098708480 |
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| author | Tieshan Zhang Liu Yang Xiong Yang Rong Tan Haojian Lu Yajing Shen |
| author_facet | Tieshan Zhang Liu Yang Xiong Yang Rong Tan Haojian Lu Yajing Shen |
| author_sort | Tieshan Zhang |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Developing small‐scale soft continuum robots with large‐angle steering capacity and high‐precision manipulation offers broad opportunities in various biomedical settings. However, existing continuum robots reach the bottleneck in actuation on account of the contradiction among small size, compliance actuation, large tender range, high precision, and small dynamic error. Herein, a 3D‐printed millimeter‐scale soft continuum robot with an ultrathin hollow skeleton wall (300 μm) and a large inner‐to‐outer ratio (0.8) is reported. After coating a thin ferromagnetic elastomer layer (≈100–150 μm), the proposed soft continuum robot equipped with hybrid actuation (tendon‐ and magnetic‐driven mode) achieves large‐angle (up to 100°) steering and high‐precision (low to 2 μm for static positioning) micromanipulation simultaneously. Specifically, the robot implements an ultralow dynamic tracking error of ≈10 μm, which is ≈30‐fold improved than the state of art. Combined with a microneedle/knife or nasopharyngeal swab, the robot reveals the potential for versatile biomedical applications, such as drug injection on the target tissue, diseased tissue ablation, and COVID‐19 nasopharyngeal sampling. The proposed millimeter‐scale soft continuum robot presents remarkable advances in large‐range and high‐precise actuation, which provides a new method for miniature continuum robot design and finds broad applications in biomedical engineering. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-20T02:09:14Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-cb78d7a8b59041409b8a20243198b2c0 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2640-4567 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-20T02:09:14Z |
| publishDate | 2021-02-01 |
| publisher | Wiley |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Advanced Intelligent Systems |
| spelling | doaj.art-cb78d7a8b59041409b8a20243198b2c02022-12-21T19:57:06ZengWileyAdvanced Intelligent Systems2640-45672021-02-0132n/an/a10.1002/aisy.202000189Millimeter‐Scale Soft Continuum Robots for Large‐Angle and High‐Precision Manipulation by Hybrid ActuationTieshan Zhang0Liu Yang1Xiong Yang2Rong Tan3Haojian Lu4Yajing Shen5Department of Biomedical Engineering City University of Hong Kong Tat Chee Avenue Kowloon Hong Kong ChinaDepartment of Biomedical Engineering City University of Hong Kong Tat Chee Avenue Kowloon Hong Kong ChinaDepartment of Biomedical Engineering City University of Hong Kong Tat Chee Avenue Kowloon Hong Kong ChinaDepartment of Biomedical Engineering City University of Hong Kong Tat Chee Avenue Kowloon Hong Kong ChinaDepartment of Biomedical Engineering City University of Hong Kong Tat Chee Avenue Kowloon Hong Kong ChinaDepartment of Biomedical Engineering City University of Hong Kong Tat Chee Avenue Kowloon Hong Kong ChinaDeveloping small‐scale soft continuum robots with large‐angle steering capacity and high‐precision manipulation offers broad opportunities in various biomedical settings. However, existing continuum robots reach the bottleneck in actuation on account of the contradiction among small size, compliance actuation, large tender range, high precision, and small dynamic error. Herein, a 3D‐printed millimeter‐scale soft continuum robot with an ultrathin hollow skeleton wall (300 μm) and a large inner‐to‐outer ratio (0.8) is reported. After coating a thin ferromagnetic elastomer layer (≈100–150 μm), the proposed soft continuum robot equipped with hybrid actuation (tendon‐ and magnetic‐driven mode) achieves large‐angle (up to 100°) steering and high‐precision (low to 2 μm for static positioning) micromanipulation simultaneously. Specifically, the robot implements an ultralow dynamic tracking error of ≈10 μm, which is ≈30‐fold improved than the state of art. Combined with a microneedle/knife or nasopharyngeal swab, the robot reveals the potential for versatile biomedical applications, such as drug injection on the target tissue, diseased tissue ablation, and COVID‐19 nasopharyngeal sampling. The proposed millimeter‐scale soft continuum robot presents remarkable advances in large‐range and high‐precise actuation, which provides a new method for miniature continuum robot design and finds broad applications in biomedical engineering.https://doi.org/10.1002/aisy.202000189magnetic actuationsmicromanipulationsmillimeter-scale soft continuum robotstendon driven robots |
| spellingShingle | Tieshan Zhang Liu Yang Xiong Yang Rong Tan Haojian Lu Yajing Shen Millimeter‐Scale Soft Continuum Robots for Large‐Angle and High‐Precision Manipulation by Hybrid Actuation Advanced Intelligent Systems magnetic actuations micromanipulations millimeter-scale soft continuum robots tendon driven robots |
| title | Millimeter‐Scale Soft Continuum Robots for Large‐Angle and High‐Precision Manipulation by Hybrid Actuation |
| title_full | Millimeter‐Scale Soft Continuum Robots for Large‐Angle and High‐Precision Manipulation by Hybrid Actuation |
| title_fullStr | Millimeter‐Scale Soft Continuum Robots for Large‐Angle and High‐Precision Manipulation by Hybrid Actuation |
| title_full_unstemmed | Millimeter‐Scale Soft Continuum Robots for Large‐Angle and High‐Precision Manipulation by Hybrid Actuation |
| title_short | Millimeter‐Scale Soft Continuum Robots for Large‐Angle and High‐Precision Manipulation by Hybrid Actuation |
| title_sort | millimeter scale soft continuum robots for large angle and high precision manipulation by hybrid actuation |
| topic | magnetic actuations micromanipulations millimeter-scale soft continuum robots tendon driven robots |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1002/aisy.202000189 |
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