Anatomy-Aware Dexterity-Driven Design Optimization of Surgical Continuum Robots

2026-09-24

AI Summary

This study addresses the challenge of optimizing geometric parameters for continuum robots operating within specific anatomical environments, where achieving both high dexterity and anatomical compatibility remains difficult. To overcome this, we propose a design optimization framework that integrates anatomical constraints with dexterity considerations. Specifically, we introduce the Reachable Volume Dexterity Solid Angle (RVDSA) as an evaluation metric and combine an efficient motion planner with an asymptotically optimal simulated annealing algorithm to achieve dexterity-driven robot configuration optimization. The effectiveness of this approach is validated in a bimanual robotic surgery scenario for colonic polyps. Compared to a baseline method that solely optimizes three-dimensional voxel coverage, our framework yields an average 78% improvement in RVDSA performance, significantly enhancing operational dexterity within confined spaces.

Abstract

Performing complex medical procedures with continuum robots requires careful selection of their geometric design parameters. The robot should have high dexterity in the specific anatomical environment of its procedure. This work presents a design optimization method that considers both dexterity and anatomy. We introduce the Reachable Volumetric Dexterous Solid Angle (RVDSA) metric as our objective, which measures the ability of a robot's end effector to reach the points in a goal volume from different directions via collision-free paths from a start configuration. We present a computationally efficient motion planner to compute this objective function for a given robotic design, and we use an asymptotically optimal simulated annealing optimizer to compute an optimized design. We applied our new method to optimize the design of a bimanual dexterous sheaths robot for performing procedures on cancerous polyps in colon anatomies, achieving a 78% higher RVDSA on average than optimizing for 3D voxel coverage alone.

Problem

• Continuum Robots
• Design Optimization
• Dexterity
• Anatomy-Aware
• Surgical Robots

Innovation

• Continuum Robots
• Design Optimization
• Dexterity Metric
• Motion Planning
• Simulated Annealing