Design and Analysis of a Wire-Driven Multifunctional Robot for Single Incision Laparoscopic Surgery

Abstract

Single Incision Laparoscopic Surgery (SILS) is a fast-growing method in the field of MIS (Minimally Invasive Surgery) that has the potential to represent the future of laparoscopic surgeries. The major benefits of SILS results from a single incision which makes surgeries essentially scar-less, and it can reduce wound infection substantially as well as recuperation time. Many new researches are now focusing on developing cutting edge technologies to support SILS; however, the practical applications of SILS are constrained by a number of intricacies such as space limitation, absence of dexterous multitasking tools, lack of sufficient actuation force and poor visualization. Deployment and retraction of surgical tools or robots are done manually in the absence of a multitasking tool manipulator which increases the surgery time, risk of injury and surgeon’s fatigue. Our research focuses on designing a novel operative hardware (multitasking manipulator) to facilitate the SILS technique with automatic tool changing capability. A wire driven mechanism has been implemented in the design to minimize the damage to the electronic hardware during sterilization since the electronic actuation and sensing components are located remotely from the end-effector which requires heat or chemical sterilization before surgery. And a wire-driven articulated robotic arm has also been designed to support the manipulator. The details of the robotic design and analysis are conducted in the paper. The feasibility of this robotic method has been demonstrated by experiments.