Flexible instrument with contact-aided structure and force feedback for endoscopic surgery

Robot-assisted surgery can effectively reduce the difficulty and improve the success rate of the surgeries. However, currently available flexible instruments have several limitations, such as large size, few degrees of freedom, and lack of contact force perception.

This study proposes a master-slave flexible instrument capable of force feedback. The instrument has a maximum outer diameter of 3 mm and an overall length of 1200 mm. With the internal working channel unoccupied, a three-dimensional force sensing unit is designed based on the neural network. The corresponding master-slave control method with proportional force feedback was also designed to effectively control the instrument.

To verify the effectiveness of the system, in vitro and in vivo experiments were conducted. The corresponding tasks were successfully completed.

The animal trial conducted in the digestive tract of a live swine proved that the system has the potential for clinical use.