Configuration Transition Control of a Continuum Surgical Manipulator for Improved Kinematic Performance

The use of continuum manipulators in surgical applications has increased recently. A continuum surgical manipulator is usually teleoperated after it is fully inserted into a patient's cavity. Clearly, it is still possible to control the continuum surgical manipulator while it is not fully inserted, although the mobility might be reduced under its partially-inserted configurations. However, such a control scheme for realizing the configuration transition during the manipulator's gradual insertion is missing. This letter, hence, proposes a novel kinematic framework of controlling a continuum surgical manipulator with configuration transitions for improved kinematic performance in teleoperation. The kinematic framework includes prioritized formulation of the Jacobian-based inverse kinematics, prediction-based constraint imposition and a set of configuration transition strategies. Both numerical simulations and experimental investigations were carried out to validate the proposed idea.