Herein, recent advances, current limitations, and open challenges in the design, modeling,
and control of continuum robots are discussed. Thanks to their lean bodies, these robots …

From a functional standpoint, classic robots are not at all similar to biological systems. If
compared with rigid robots, animals' bodies look overly redundant, imprecise, and weak …

Continuum robots are not constructed with discrete joints but, instead, change shape and
position their tip by flexing along their entire length. Their narrow curvilinear shape makes …

The robotics community has seen an exponential growth in the level of complexity of the
theoretical tools presented for the modeling of soft robotics devices. Different solutions have …

In this paper, we describe the state of the art in continuum robot manipulators and systems
intended for application to interventional medicine. Inspired by biological trunks, tentacles …

The dynamic equations of many continuum and soft robot designs can be succinctly
formulated as a set of partial differential equations (PDEs) based on classical Cosserat rod …

Tendon actuation is one of the most prominent actuation principles for continuum robots. To
date, a wide variety of modelling approaches has been derived to describe the deformations …

Continuum robots provide inherent structural compliance with high dexterity to access the
surgical target sites along tortuous anatomical paths under constrained environments and …

With the maturity of surgical robotic systems based on traditional rigid-link principles, the rate
of progress slowed as limits of size and controllable degrees of freedom were reached …

Soft manipulator is a kind of special manipulator that uses soft material or flexible structure to
perform manipulation task under the specific drive mode inspired by the soft tissue. It is …