Bending Actuation of Ferromagnetic Soft Continuum Robot under Spatially non-uniform Magnetic Fields

Cardiovascular disease seriously affects the health and life quality of human being in nowadays society. In this paper, a new type of ferromagnetic soft continuum robot (FSCR) is devised to realize the flexible maneuver in the blood vessel to treat cardiovascular disease. Its bending actuation performance is studied under the various distance between the robot and a spherical permanent magnet, which generates non-uniform magnetic field, and the different length-diameter ratios of the FSCR. Its bending is calculated respectively by the finite difference (FD) method and the finite element (FE) method. The simulation results of the FD method well agree with the FE method. The workspace of the FSCR is analyzed as well. Consequently, an optimal design and control scheme is established for the FSCR.