This paper describes and discusses the history and state of the art of continuous backbone
robot manipulators. Also known as continuum manipulators, these robots, which resemble …

The trend of achieving minimal invasiveness in surgeries and recent technological
advances in robotics have resulted in the emergence of flexible surgical robots. Such …

Robot-assisted surgeries have been integrated and leading to a paradigm shift in surgical
fields. With the emergence of Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS), especially Natural Orifice …

In the previous decade, multiple approaches for kinematic controllers of continuum
manipulators were successfully developed. However, for fast and exact motions of …

This article presents a modeling methodology and experimental validation for soft
manipulators to obtain forward kinematic model (FKM) and inverse kinematic model (IKM) …

Objective: Minimally invasive surgical interventions in the gastrointestinal tract, such as
endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD), are very difficult for surgeons when performed …

This chapter provides an overview of the state of the art of snake-like (backbones comprised
of many small links) and continuum (continuous backbone) robots. The history of each of …

This article presents the conception, the numerical modeling, and the control of a dexterous,
deformable manipulator bio-inspired by the skeletal spine found in vertebrate animals …

In this paper we present a prototype integrated robotic system, the I-Support bathing robot,
that aims at supporting new aspects of assisted daily-living activities on a real-life scenario …

Flexible minimally invasive surgical instruments can be used to target difficult-to-reach
locations within the human body. Accurately steering these instruments requires information …