| Abstract | 第1-5页 |
| 摘要 | 第5-8页 |
| Acknowledgment | 第8-10页 |
| List of Tables | 第10-11页 |
| List of Figures | 第11-15页 |
| 1 Introduction | 第15-27页 |
| ·Motivation of the research | 第15-25页 |
| ·Less invasive surgery paradigms | 第15-17页 |
| ·Robotic-assisted less invasive surgeries | 第17-20页 |
| ·Continuum robots in surgical applications | 第20-22页 |
| ·Existing research on continuum robots | 第22-24页 |
| ·Contributions of the thesis | 第24-25页 |
| ·Organization of the thesis | 第25-27页 |
| 2 Kinematics of Continuum Manipulators | 第27-41页 |
| ·Structure of the continuum manipulators | 第27-28页 |
| ·Nomenclature and a simplified kinematics model | 第28-31页 |
| ·Simplified kinematics | 第31-35页 |
| ·Kinematics of the tth segment of a continuum manipulator | 第32-33页 |
| ·Kinematics of multiple-segment continuum manipulators | 第33-34页 |
| ·Actuation kinematics of secondary backbones | 第34-35页 |
| ·Motion planning algorithm for continuum manipulators | 第35-37页 |
| ·Dexterity evaluation criterion of the manipulators | 第37-41页 |
| 3 Comparison of Kinematic Performance of Various Manipulators | 第41-59页 |
| ·Comparison formulation | 第41-44页 |
| ·Structures of the continuum manipulators for comparison | 第42-43页 |
| ·Joint variables limits and structural parameters | 第43-44页 |
| ·Kinematics of the three structures to be compared | 第44-49页 |
| ·Kinematics of Structure A | 第44-46页 |
| ·Kinematics of Structure B | 第46-47页 |
| ·Kinematics of Structure C | 第47-49页 |
| ·Translational workspace for the three continuum manipulators | 第49-52页 |
| ·Dexterity of the three continuum manipulators at selected points | 第52-54页 |
| ·Discussions on the comparison results | 第54-59页 |
| 4 Structural Optimization of the Continuum Manipulators | 第59-75页 |
| ·Structural optimization and dimension synthesis | 第60-67页 |
| ·Structural optimization for Structure A | 第60-63页 |
| ·Structural optimization for Structure B | 第63-67页 |
| ·Structural optimization for Structure C | 第67页 |
| ·Dexterity comparison results and discussions | 第67-75页 |
| 5 Design and Simulation of an Endoscopic Continuum Robot | 第75-85页 |
| ·Design of an endoscopic continuum robot for N.O.T.E.S | 第75-79页 |
| ·The vision unit | 第76-78页 |
| ·Surgical tools | 第78页 |
| ·Deployment of the endoscopic continuum robot into its working configu-ration | 第78-79页 |
| ·Knot-tying simulation using two continuum manipulators | 第79-85页 |
| ·Kinematics and the translational workspace | 第79-80页 |
| ·Experiment setup and workspace mapping | 第80-81页 |
| ·Simulation programming across C++ and Matlab | 第81-82页 |
| ·Knot-tying process | 第82-85页 |
| 6 Conclusions | 第85-91页 |
| ·Summary of this thesis | 第85-87页 |
| ·Recommendations for future developments | 第87-91页 |
| Bibliography | 第91-97页 |
