Design of a multifunctional compliant instrument for minimally invasive surgery.

A new multifunctional compliant instrument has been designed for use in minimally invasive surgery. The instrument combines scissors and forceps into a single multifunctional device. The main advantage of using multifunctional instruments for minimally invasive surgery is that instrument exchanges can be reduced, thus reducing procedure time and risk of inadvertent tissue injury during instrument exchanges. In this paper, the length, width, and thickness of the multifunctional compliant mechanism tool tip is optimized to maximize the jaw opening and the grasping force. The optimized design is then modeled to simulate the stresses encountered in the scissors mode. A 5.0 mm diameter stainless steel prototype is fabricated using electro-discharge machining and is shown to grasp and cut successfully.

[1]  M. Frecker,et al.  Sequence and task analysis of instrument use in common laparoscopic procedures , 2002, Surgical Endoscopy And Other Interventional Techniques.

[2]  Mary Frecker,et al.  Design and Fabrication of a UV-LIGA Compliant Micrograsper for Ophthalmic Surgery , 2004 .

[3]  R S Haluck,et al.  Design of multifunctional compliant mechanisms for minimally invasive surgery , 2002, Minimally invasive therapy & allied technologies : MITAT : official journal of the Society for Minimally Invasive Therapy.

[4]  M. Madou.  Fundamentals of microfabrication : the science of miniaturization , 2002 .