Method and system for automatically maintaining an operator selected roll orientation at a distal tip of a robotic endoscope

A medical system comprising:

• a robotic endoscope having an elongate body including one or more bendable segments and a distal tip;
• a manipulator having one or more drivable joints for manipulating the robotic endoscope in corresponding degrees of freedom movement;
• an input control device;
• and
• a processor programmed to:
• receive a control input from the input control device;
• determine a current commanded state of the tip of the robotic endoscope from the control input wherein the current commanded state includes a commanded roll position and roll velocity;
• determine a roll angular adjustment by using a difference between a setpoint and the current commanded state of the tip of the robotic endoscope, wherein the setpoint indicates a desired roll orientation of a camera view captured at the tip of the robotic endoscope;
• determine a modified current commanded roll position by modifying the current commanded roll position to be conditionally related by the roll angular adjustment to a prior process period commanded roll position, and determine a modified current commanded roll velocity by modifying the current commanded roll velocity to be conditionally related by the roll angular adjustment to one of a constant and a function of the roll angular adjustment;
• modify the current commanded state by constraining the current commanded roll position and roll velocity to be the modified current commanded roll position and roll velocity;
• and command the tip of the robotic endoscope to be driven to the modified current commanded state.