Modeling and Analysis of Surgical Parallel Continuum Manipulator

Parallel continuum robots have been widely utilized in minimally invasive surgery as a result of their high flexibility and dexterity, which can minimize surgical trauma. In this paper, we propose a dexterous surgical manipulator with four DOFs, which is composed of three parallel superelastic NiTi rods. With a tool channel in the middle of the manipulator, several surgical procedures can be performed in confined and narrow cavities. The classic Cosserat Rod model was applied to establish the kinematics model of the flexible manipulator, where the Jacobian and compliance matrix of flexible manipulator can be solved numerically by a shooting method. Manipulability and compliance ellipsoid were employed in three separate configurations to characterize and visualize the manipulator’s abilities. The performance and feasibility of this manipulator were demonstrated by the results of flexible grasping simulation.