David Brenken

Evaluation of data-driven kinematic models for autonomous control of continuum robotic in-situ bioprinters

Swen A.T. Groen

Samuel Smocot

Luc Mongeau

Minimally invasive in-situ bioprinting involves the direct deposition of hydrogels within the body to reconstruct tissue defects. These biop… (see more)rinters use soft robotic printheads to extrude hydrogels through a hollow channel and nozzle. The accurate control of the nozzle tip position is critical for safety and shape fidelity. Due to a lack of sensing integration, existing control strategies are limited to feedforward models and are design-specific, thereby increasing development cost and complexity. This present study systematically compared three different data-driven modeling strategies for autonomous control of a cable-driven continuum in-situ bioprinter: 1) Polynomial regression, 2) Gaussian process regression, and 3) a neural network. Submillimeter accuracy was achieved for both the Gaussian process and the neural network in static measurements. The Polynomial regression model had a 1.67 mm accuracy. Dynamic trajectory tracking indicated that the performance of the neural network was comparable to that of the polynomial regression model and lower than that of the Gaussian process. Printing of different shaped constructs yielded minor visual deviations across all models from the target shapes. These results support the feasibility of real-time autonomous control for minimally invasive in-situ bioprinters and indicate the advantages of the different models during the design process of novel printing strategies.

2026-04-06

IEEE International Conference on Soft Robotics (published)

doi.org

They Hear Me Rolling: Design and Characterization of a Distributed, Rolling Acoustic-Tactile Sensor

Wilfred Mason

David Brenken

Olivier St-Martin Cormier

Audrey Sedal

Tactile sensor design has been widely explored at the centimeter-scale; fewer explorations exist in larger scale systems with varied geometr… (see more)ies. We present a meter-scale tactile sensor for wheeled robotic platforms based on a flexible acoustic waveguide. This sensor architecture performs contact sensing over the surface of a rotating wheel with a single transducer that is separated from the sensing surface. The design and characterization of the sensor are presented, along with a demonstration of a state-estimation framework using tactile sensor feedback to measure surface features.

2025-09-30

IEEE Sensors Letters (published)

doi.org

Acoustic tactile sensing for mobile robot wheels

Wilfred Mason

David Brenken

Falcon Z. Dai

Ricardo Gonzalo Cruz Castillo

Olivier St-Martin Cormier

Audrey Sedal

2024-02-27

ArXiv (preprint)