Soft Catheter Robots

Research Objective
The research objective of this work is to establish and validate a mathematical framework for the inverse design of universal soft robots that:

  • Provide exceptional force and power densities.
  • Dictate a new means of robotic, automated manufacturing via 3D printed materials exploiting highly anisotropic elastomers, inextensible fibers, and beam elements.


Multiscale inverse design

The actuator geometry's are created to fit specific anatomy given CT scans. VMTK computes anatomy centerlines automatically. Convex blending is implemented to create the robot centerlines of the initial and desired centerlines via a joint angle q. A surface is then fit to the centerlines using Frenet-Serret parametrization.

The current researchers for this project are Mark Gilbertson and Gillian McDonald.

EFRI Actuator Design

Soft Robot - Serial Locomotion

Relevant Publications:

[1] Mark D. Gilbertson, Gillian J. McDonald, Chaitanya Awasthi, Rumi Faizer, and Timothy M. Kowalewski. Computational inverse design of anatomy-specific soft robot actuators with physically-realizable material conditions. In The Hamlyn Symposium on Medical Robotics, 2018. [ .pdf ]
[2] Chaitanya Awasthi, Gillian McDonald, Mark D. Gilbertson, James D. Van de Ven, and Timothy M. Kowalewski. Generalized Kinematics for Deformable Patient-Specific Soft Robots. In IEEE IROS Full-day Workshop on Continuum Robots in Medicine - Design, Integration, and Applications, 2017. [ .pdf ]
[3] Mark D Gilbertson, Gillian McDonald, Gabriel Korinek, James D Van de Ven, and Timothy M Kowalewski. Serially actuated locomotion for soft robots in tube-like environments. IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 2(2):1140--1147, 2017. [ .pdf ]
[4] Mark D Gilbertson, James D Van de Ven, and Timothy M Kowalewski. Inverse Design Methodology for Patient Specific Soft Robotics. In ICRA 2017 workshop C4 Surgical Robots: Compliant, Continuum, Cognitive, and Collaborative, 2017. [ .pdf ]
[5] Gillian McDonald, Amer Safdari, James D. Van de Ven, and Timothy M. Kowalewski. Traction of Helical Soft Continuum Actuators for Endoluminal Robots. In IEEE IROS Full-day Workshop on Continuum Robots in Medicine - Design, Integration, and Applications, 2017. [ .pdf ]
[6] Mark Gilbertson, Darrin Beekman, Biswaranjan Mohanty, Saeed Hashemi, Sangyoon Lee, James D Van de Ven, and Timothy M Kowalewski. Force analysis and modelling of soft actuators for catheter robots. In ASME 2016 Dynamic Systems and Control Conference, pages V002T25A005--V002T25A005. American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 2016. [ .pdf ]
[7] Mark D Gilbertson, Gillian McDonald, Gabriel Korinek, James D Van de Ven, and Timothy M Kowalewski. Soft passive valves for serial actuation in a soft hydraulic robotic catheter. ASME Journal of Medical Devices, 10(3):030931, 2016. [ .pdf ]