Design, development and characterization of a modular end effector for MIS procedures

The Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS) paradigm is well established in modern surgical procedures. Although MIS is successful from the patient's viewpoint, the use of rigid instruments inserted through small skin incisions leads to dexterity constraints and loss of degree of motion. Robotics has been introduced as support for augmenting dexterity during interventions, restoring hand-eye coordination and providing tools with enhanced degrees of motion. However, surgical robots have high costs and large footprint, pushing the research towards the development of modular robots to be used in Naturally Orifice Trans-luminal Endoscopic Surgery (NOTES) procedures. The main need of having simple and cheap tools able to be interchanged during the surgical procedure became crucial. In this paper an innovative modular end-effector based on a compliant soft actuation system able to provide up to 5.78 N gripping forces is presented.

[1]  Arianna Menciassi,et al.  A statically balanced and bi-stable compliant end effector combined with a laparoscopic 2DoF robotic arm , 2012 .

[2]  Alain Delchambre,et al.  Towards flexible medical instruments: Review of flexible fluidic actuators , 2009 .

[3]  Paolo Dario,et al.  Design of miniature modular in vivo robots for dedicated tasks in Minimally Invasive Surgery , 2011, 2011 IEEE/ASME International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics (AIM).

[4]  P. Dario,et al.  A miniaturized robotic platform for natural orifice transluminal endoscopic surgery: in vivo validation , 2015, Surgical Endoscopy.

[5]  Chin-Hsing Kuo,et al.  Kinematic design considerations for minimally invasive surgical robots: an overview , 2012, The international journal of medical robotics + computer assisted surgery : MRCAS.

[6]  G W Taylor,et al.  Robotic applications in abdominal surgery: their limitations and future developments , 2007, The international journal of medical robotics + computer assisted surgery : MRCAS.

[7]  Paolo Dario,et al.  A modular magnetic platform for natural orifice transluminal endoscopic surgery , 2013, 2013 35th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC).

[8]  Dominiek Reynaerts,et al.  Development of a hybrid ferrofluid seal technology for miniature pneumatic and hydraulic actuators , 2009 .

[9]  Dong-Soo Kwon,et al.  Microsurgical telerobot system , 1998, Proceedings. 1998 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems. Innovations in Theory, Practice and Applications (Cat. No.98CH36190).

[10]  G. Dogangil,et al.  A review of medical robotics for minimally invasive soft tissue surgery , 2010, Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. Part H, Journal of engineering in medicine.

[11]  Guang-Zhong Yang,et al.  Emerging Robotic Platforms for Minimally Invasive Surgery , 2013, IEEE Reviews in Biomedical Engineering.

[12]  Dominiek Reynaerts,et al.  Fabrication and control of miniature McKibben actuators , 2011 .

[13]  Arianna Menciassi,et al.  Finite Element Analysis and Design Optimization of a Pneumatically Actuating Silicone Module for Robotic Surgery Applications , 2014 .

[14]  Paolo Dario,et al.  Array of Robots Augmenting the Kinematics of Endocavitary Surgery , 2014, IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics.

[15]  Arianna Menciassi,et al.  Control architecture of a sensorless robotic platform for minimally invasive surgery , 2014, 2014 IEEE/ASME International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics.