Deep-Learning-Based Control of a Decoupled Two-Segment Continuum Robot for Endoscopic Submucosal Dissection

TL;DR

This paper introduces DESectBot, a dual-segment continuum robot with deep learning controllers, achieving high precision and reliability for endoscopic submucosal dissection, surpassing existing robotic tools in dexterity and control accuracy.

Contribution

The study presents a novel dual-segment continuum robot with integrated forceps and a GRU-based control system, improving dexterity and control in ESD procedures over prior single-segment tools.

Findings

GRU controller achieved lowest RMSE in trajectory tracking

100% success rate in peg transfer task

Demonstrated effective tissue resection in ex vivo tests

Abstract

Manual endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD) is technically demanding, and existing single-segment robotic tools offer limited dexterity. These limitations motivate the development of more advanced solutions. To address this, DESectBot, a novel dual segment continuum robot with a decoupled structure and integrated surgical forceps, enabling 6 degrees of freedom (DoFs) tip dexterity for improved lesion targeting in ESD, was developed in this work. Deep learning controllers based on gated recurrent units (GRUs) for simultaneous tip position and orientation control, effectively handling the nonlinear coupling between continuum segments, were proposed. The GRU controller was benchmarked against Jacobian based inverse kinematics, model predictive control (MPC), a feedforward neural network (FNN), and a long short-term memory (LSTM) network. In nested-rectangle and Lissajous trajectory tracking tasks, the GRU achieved the lowest position/orientation RMSEs: 1.11 mm/ 4.62{\deg} and 0.81 mm/ 2.59{\deg}, respectively. For orientation control at a fixed position (four target poses), the GRU attained a mean RMSE of 0.14 mm and 0.72{\deg}, outperforming all alternatives. In a peg transfer task, the GRU achieved a 100% success rate (120 success/120 attempts) with an average transfer time of 11.8s, the STD significantly outperforms novice-controlled systems. Additionally, an ex vivo ESD demonstration grasping, elevating, and resecting tissue as the scalpel completed the cut confirmed that DESectBot provides sufficient stiffness to divide thick gastric mucosa and an operative workspace adequate for large lesions.These results confirm that GRU-based control significantly enhances precision, reliability, and usability in ESD surgical training scenarios.