Patent ID: 8123678

Claim:
A microdexterous endoscope apparatus comprising: a catheter with fixed tool tip, or having a lumen comprising at least one port in the interior of said lumen; at least one actuated segment at the distal end of the catheter, wherein the actuated segment comprises a plurality of indirectly heated shape memory alloy (SMA) actuators secured to a flexible skeleton, wherein each SMA actuator has a biasing spring operatively associated therewith, the biasing spring biasing the SMA actuator to a select bend at a reference state, the SMA actuator having a thermal conduction barrier between any adjacent SMA actuator, the SMA actuator being adapted to exhibit a variation in bend state corresponding to a variation in temperature of the SMA actuator; a control system configured to monitor and control actuation of said at least one actuated segment based at least in part on temperature and strain feedback from said plurality of SMA actuators; and a parallel electrical bus traversing the length of the catheter and interfacing with the plurality of SMA actuators of said at least one actuated segment and said control system; wherein the control system is adapted to modulate application of a current to thereby independently control the temperature of each of the plurality of SMA actuators to achieve a desired bend state of each SMA actuator based at least in part on the control system being capable of compensating for the non-linear hysteresis in the SMA actuator using feedback voltages obtained from the SMA actuator via the electrical bus.