Distributed Bending and Mode Control for Bendable Medical Devices

This is a medical robot system designed to navigate inside the body. It uses a flexible tube with a steerable tip made of multiple segments, which also contains a channel for medical tools or a camera. A controller guides the steerable tip using different bending patterns, including a special "distributed bending mode," and shows the user how the tip is bending on a display. The system can also determine if a tool can fit through the channel and visually indicate this to the user, perhaps by changing colors or showing the tip's current shape.