Fault Detection and Tolerant-Control Method for Sensorless Disposable Soft Manipulators

Abstract

Disposable soft manipulators provide a promising solution for robot-assisted surgeries in low- and middle-income countries due to their cost advantages. The surgical applications are of high reliability requirement, while the low-cost materials and mechanical structures impair robot reliability and, therefore, some measures should be taken to enhance the reliability of disposable soft manipulators, e.g., fault detection, identification, and tolerant control. This article proposes a new fault detection algorithm for locked-motor faults of soft manipulators. By leveraging the projection Jacobian matrix, it requires less actuators than conventional methods. In terms of the uncertainty introduced by the projection Jacobian, an adaptive algorithm is proposed to compensate for it. Dedicated experiments are conducted to validate our proposed fault detection method and results prove its efficacy for monitoring system health conditions and controlling the system under faulty modes.