Large Deflection Shape Sensor and Method of Use for Dexterous Continuum Manipulators

The present invention generally relates to dexterous continuum manipulator (DCM) shape sensing and, more particularly, to large deflection shape sensing for DCM. DCMs have found a variety of applications in robotic surgery in general and, specifically, in minimally-invasive surgery (MIS). These DCMs typically assist surgeon in diagnosis and/or operating in constrained environments. For many surgical applications, the DCMs may need to operate with curvatures much larger than the current shape sensing methods can detect. This inventions describes a specific embodiment for shape sensing techniques utilizing Fiber Bragg grating (FBG) arrays which can detect the curvature of DCM with large deflection (large curvature and large angle of curvature). For this purpose, we used FBG sensors along with nitinol wires as the supporting substrates to form a triangular cross section. More generally, the proposed shape sensing techniques enable real-time tracking and control of DCMs used in MIS.

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