Evaluating Miniature Robot Surgical Scissors*

Proper methods are not available to evaluate miniature robot surgical scissors’ abilities. This paper proposes agar gel as a reference cutting material for comparison between miniature robot surgical scissors of different designs. Trends in material properties (yield strength and fracture toughness) of agar were determined to correlate positively with its concentration by weight through experimentation. This indicates that agar tends to become more resistant to fracture nucleation and crack propagation with increasing agar concentration. Then, using novel magnetic robot surgical scissors, a cutting test showcased a positive correlation between agar cutting difficulty and its concentration. Thus, given increasing difficulty to cut with increasing agar concentration, agar gel could serve as a potential standard to compare miniature robot surgical scissors cutting capabilities.