Planning stable paths for concentric tube robots

Abstract

Concentric tube robots are continuum robots that can navigate natural pathways to reach locations deep inside the human body. Their operation is based on rotating and telescopically actuating concentric tubes to achieve robot tip pose control. During tube manipulation, the elastic energy stored in the robot structure may give rise to unstable robot configurations and loss of control. This can occur, in particular, for highly curved and elongated tubes that are required for certain surgical interventions. This paper presents a path planning methodology that allows the utilization of such generally unstable concentric tube robots by ensuring that they operate in their stable configuration regions.