Flexible, steerable, soft needles are desirable in
Minimally Invasive Surgery to achieve complex trajectories
while maintaining the benefits of percutaneous intervention
compared to open surgery. One such needle is the multi-segment
Programmable Bevel-tip Needle (PBN), which is inspired by the
mechanical design of the ovipositor of certain wasps. PBNs
can steer in 3D whilst minimizing the force applied to the
surrounding substrate, due to the cyclic motion of the segments.
Taking inspiration also from the control strategy of the wasp to
perform insertions and lay their eggs, this paper presents the
design of a cyclic controller that can steer a PBN to produce a
desired trajectory in 3D. The performance of the controller is
demonstrated in simulation in comparison to that of a direct
controller without cyclic motion. It is shown that, while the
same steering curvatures can be attained by both controllers,
the time taken to achieve the configuration is longer for the
cyclic controller, leading to issues of potential under-steering
and longer insertion times.