Genetic Algorithm-based Optimal Design Strategy of a Continuum Surgical Manipulator

A novel wire-driven continuum surgical robot for laryngeal surgery is presented. The surgical robot is composed of a power transmission interface, a continuum manipulator, a surgical forceps and motors. The motion of the surgical robot is obtained by causing a controlled deformation in the continuum manipulator, which is the core part of the surgical robot. Therefore, the structural design optimization problem of continuum manipulators is solved in this paper. Based on the structure of the continuum manipulator, optimization objectives which include load-carrying capacity and secondary deformation are established. The non-dominant sorting genetic algorithm with elite strategy (NSGA-II) is adopted for multi-objective optimization. An experimental prototype is constructed based on the designed optimization results. The load-carrying and space-traversal capacity tests prove the effectiveness of the proposed optimization algorithm.