Onboard visual micro-servoing on robotic surgery tools
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Published version
Author(s)
Chen, Xu
Kiziroglou, Michail E
Yeatman, Eric M
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Precision motion actuation is a key technology for miniature medical robotics in a variety of applications, such as optical fibre-based diagnosis and intervention tools. Conventional inductive actuation mechanisms are challenging to scale down. Piezoelectric materials offer a scalable, precise, fast and high-force method but at a limited displacement range. In previous work, the combination of piezoelectric beams (benders) with compliant motion translation structures has been shown to be promising for robotic micro-actuation. In this paper, this approach is employed to implement a three degrees of freedom delta robot, suitable for catheter, diagnostic optical fibre and microsurgery tool manipulation. The fabrication process combines additive manufacturing, origami structuring and piezoelectric beam assembly. Closed-loop control is implemented using a new, on-board visual feedback concept. In contrast to typical optical motion systems, the fully internal visual feedback offers system compactness with precise and reliable camera-to-marker geometry definition. By employment of this method, a delta robot with motion accuracy of 7.5 μm, resolution of 10 μm and 8.1 μm precision is demonstrated. The robot is shown to follow a range of programmable trajectories under these specifications, and to compensate for externally applied forces typically expected during microsurgery manipulations. This is the first, to our knowledge, demonstration of micromotion control using internal visual feedback, and it opens up the way for high-resolution compact microrobots.
Date Issued
2025-05-29
Date Acceptance
2025-04-10
Citation
Microsystems & Nanoengineering, 2025, 11
ISSN
2055-7434
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
Journal / Book Title
Microsystems & Nanoengineering
Volume
11
Issue
1
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2025 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
License URL
Identifier
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/40442069
PII: 10.1038/s41378-025-00955-x
Subjects
Instruments & Instrumentation
Nanoscience & Nanotechnology
Science & Technology
Science & Technology - Other Topics
Technology
Publication Status
Published
Coverage Spatial
England
Article Number
112
Date Publish Online
2025-05-29