Workshop Continuum and Soft Robots for medical interventions - IROS 2018 (CSR workshop 2018)

In recent decades, the development of MIS (Minimal Invasive Surgeries) and NOTES (Natural Orifices Transluminal Endoscopic Surgeries) has been accompanied by a proliferation of innovative medical robot designs, especially based on incorporating continuum and soft design elements. However, researchers have not yet reached consensus on do not have broadly agreed methods for design, modeling, and simulation of soft and continuum robot structures bodies. In addition, the challenges of sensing, actuation, and control in soft and continuum bodied robots are still being overcome. The objective of this workshop is for participants to review and discuss the most recent advances in terms of novel design and mechanism paradigms. Modeling approaches, stability, and control the stability issue, and the control strategy, which are intimately linked, will be covered, as well as open challenges like follow-the-leader deployment, variable stiffness mechanism, variable stiffness control, reconfigurable structure, data-driven approach for robot control, and advance in the development of materials.