Pneumatic Endomechanics Beyond Human Intuition

Being able to mechanically access the interior of the human body for surgical operations in the least intrusive manner (minimally invasive surgery) is life critical. Despite the enormous progress in the field of endomechanics, the design of modern devices still relies to a very large extent on human intuition. For pneumatically activated soft robotics devices in particular, the design freedom is so large that intuition of the designer is really the limiting factor. The ambition of this project is to substitute the designer with modern computational algorithms, and thereby achieve pneumatic endomechanical devices of unprecedented performance. To this end, the project shall produce new algorithms and apply them for creating demonstrator designs. The aim beyond the project end is to inspire and enable a new generation of pneumatically controlled endoscopic devices, manipulators and grips that will take full advantage of modern and future digital fabrication technologies.