Fiber-reinforced soft polymeric manipulator with smart motion scaling and stiffness tunability

Summary Minimally invasive surgery (MIS) is emerging as a burgeoning mode of medical treatment and is widely adopted in practical clinical operations. Here, we report a soft manipulator that can actively deform and navigate through a narrow and constrained environment. Stiffness tunability, tremor filtration, and motion scaling capabilities are incorporated to ensure the position and posture of the manipulator during operation. Based on teleoperation through a handle shank, we demonstrate the capability of navigating through a complex, constrained, and narrow space of the human skeleton. By attaching a camera and syringe needle at the front tip of the soft manipulator, the capability of acupuncture treatment and in vivo drug delivery in a medical mannequin is further demonstrated. Finally, autonomous recognition and tracking systems are developed to ensure the surgeon can effortlessly teleoperate the soft manipulator to enter the human body.