On accuracy of double-screw-drive robotic forceps

Recently, robotic surgical assistance systems are in clinical use in the field of minimally invasive surgery. We have developed a multi-DOF robotic forceps manipulator using a novel omni-directional bending technique, so far. The developed robotic forceps can bend without using wires. Without wires, it has high rigidity, and it can bend at 90 degrees in any arbitrary direction. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the performance of the developed robotic forceps and to demonstrate its validity. Tracking control experiment for examining the accuracy of the DSD forceps was conducted, and an analysis of the accuracy was performed.