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Design and Fabrication of an Elastomeric Unit for Soft Modular Robots in Minimally Invasive Surgery
Published on: November 14, 2015
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A novel wearable interface based on IMUs for robotic endoscopy.
Qiwen Yao1, Chengyu Zhang1, Qiang Lin1
1Key Laboratory of Mechanism Theory and Equipment Design of Ministry of Education, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, China.
Summary
A new wearable interface enhances control for flexible endoscopic robots, improving surgical precision and reducing procedure time. This intuitive system shows promise for gastrointestinal surgeries like endoscopic submucosal dissection.
Area of Science:
- Robotics in Medicine
- Surgical Technology
- Biomechanics
Background:
- Flexible endoscopic robots offer significant potential in gastrointestinal surgery.
- Current control interfaces lack intuitiveness, leading to longer surgery times.
- There is a need for agile, high-precision, and intuitive control methods.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop a novel wearable interface for controlling flexible endoscopic robots.
- To enhance the intuitiveness and precision of robotic surgery in the gastrointestinal tract.
- To address challenges in current flexible endoscopic robot control systems.
Main Methods:
- Developed an upper-limb kinematic model using inertial measurement units (IMUs) for pose estimation.
- Incorporated a tremor filter and workspace/velocity safety constraints.
- Designed a wearable interface that isomorphically matches the upper limb for robot control.
Main Results:
- The wearable interface achieved approximately 1% positioning root mean square error (RMSE) of full scale.
- The flexible manipulator's planar positioning RMSE reached 0.56 mm.
- Successfully performed endoscopic submucosal dissection on 156 mm² of porcine colon mucosa.
Conclusions:
- The developed wearable interface is effective for endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD) with flexible endoscopic robots.
- The system demonstrates robustness, intuitiveness, and clinical potential.
- The leader-follower control system shows promise for advancing robotic gastrointestinal surgery.
