Patent ID: 8721530

Claim:
An apparatus comprising: an elongated body comprising a steerable distal portion and a plurality of automatically controlled segments proximal to the steerable distal portion that are articulatable relative to one another; a plurality of tensioning members each having a proximally disposed mating feature attachable to a complementary mating feature of a respective one of a plurality of actuators, the plurality of tensioning members each being distally attached to at least one of the plurality of segments; a first connector interface holding the mating features of the plurality of tensioning members in a first organized arrangement; a second connector interface holding the complementary mating features of the plurality of actuators in a second organized arrangement, the second connector interface engageable with the first connector interface to align and respectively mechanically attach the mating features of the tensioning members and the complementary mating features of the actuators; and a motion controller that controls the plurality of actuators to control the tensioning members in an attached state of the mating features and the complementary mating features to automatically bend and propagate the plurality of segments along a path defined by the steerable distal portion.