A novel wearable interface based on IMUs for robotic endoscopy

Flexible endoscopic robots hold broad application prospects in gastrointestinal tract surgery. However, the lack of intuitiveness and heterogeneity between the interface and flexible endoscopic robots results in insufficient operational intuitiveness and prolonged surgery time. Developing an agile, high-precision, and intuitive control method for flexible endoscopic robots has become a challenge.

This work proposed a novel method for estimating upper-limb's pose using inertial measurement units (IMUs) by building the upper-limb kinematic model and estimating the pose using solely angle. Additionally, a tremor filter and safety constraints on workspace and velocity were incorporated. Based on this method, this work proposed a novel wearable interface that isomorphically matches to the upper limb and suitable for controlling flexible endoscopic robots.

The wearable interface's positioning root mean square error (RMSE) reaches approximately 1% of full scale in each axis. Under the control of the wearable interface, the planar positioning RMSE of the flexible manipulator reached 0.56 mm. In the ex-vivo experiment, 156 mm $_{}^2$ of porcine colon mucosa was successfully cut off.

The wearable interface has been proven effective in performing endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD) which is particularly suitable for flexible endoscopic robots. The experimental results demonstrate the robustness, intuitive, and clinical potential of the leader-follower control system.