Patent ID: 8460236

Claim:
A robotic medical system for controlling a shapeable instrument within an anatomical region, where the shapeable instrument includes at least a working section and one or more positioning elements that move the shapeable instrument and at least one optical fiber coupled thereto, the medical system comprising: a controller including a master input device, where the controller generates a position control signal in response to the master input device to position the working section at a desired position; one or more actuators operatively coupleable to the one or more positioning elements, where the actuators manipulate the positioning elements based on the position control signal to drive at least a first portion of the shapeable instrument, to position the working section toward the desired position; a localization system configured to obtain a plurality of localized shape data from the first portion of the shapeable instrument using the at least one optical fiber of the shapeable instrument; and where when the controller determines that the first portion of the shapeable instrument should be in a desired configuration, the controller generates a signal based upon a differential between the localized shape data and the desired configuration of the first portion of the shapeable instrument.