Towards the development of a miniaturized planar snake catheter based on fluidic actuators and conductive whiskers

摘要

This paper presents a novel miniaturized planar snake catheter (MSC) that is designed to be implemented as an active catheter. The system consists of two modules, each of which is a flexible, polymer-based, bending fluidic actuator (BFA) that is driven by a pressurized working fluid. These modules, when combined, give the MSC two degrees of freedom (DOF) and allow it to move in a single plane. A prototype of the proposed robotic catheter is presented along with its manufacturing procedure. The MSC's workspace is defined and an empirical model is given to describe the relationship between the MSC's tip displacement and the working fluid pressure. A minimalist control strategy for the MSC is proposed and discussed.