Towards the development of a miniaturized planar snake catheter based on fluidic actuators and conductive whiskers

This paper presents a novel miniaturized planar snake catheter (MSC) that is designed to be implemented as an active catheter. The system consists of two modules, each of which is a flexible, polymer-based, bending fluidic actuator (BFA) that is driven by a pressurized working fluid. These modules, when combined, give the MSC two degrees of freedom (DOF) and allow it to move in a single plane. A prototype of the proposed robotic catheter is presented along with its manufacturing procedure. The MSC´s workspace is defined and an empirical model is given to describe the relationship between the MSC´s tip displacement and the working fluid pressure. A minimalist control strategy for the MSC is proposed and discussed.