Kinematic Analysis and Optimization of a Novel Robot for Surgical Tool Manipulation

2008 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaoli Zhang ◽  
Carl A. Nelson

The size and limited dexterity of current surgical robotic systems are factors that limit their usefulness. To improve the level of assimilation of surgical robots in minimally invasive surgery (MIS), a compact, lightweight surgical robotic positioning mechanism with four degrees of freedom (DOFs) (three rotational DOFs and one translation DOF) is proposed in this paper. This spatial mechanism based on a bevel-gear wrist is remotely driven with three rotation axes intersecting at a remote rotation center (the MIS entry port). Forward and inverse kinematics are derived, and these are used for optimizing the mechanism structure given workspace requirements. By evaluating different spherical geared configurations with various link angles and pitch angles, an optimal design is achieved, which performs surgical tool positioning throughout the desired kinematic workspace while occupying a small space bounded by a hemisphere of radius 13.7cm. This optimized workspace conservatively accounts for collision avoidance between the patient and robot or internally between the robot links. This resultant mechanism is highly compact and yet has the dexterity to cover the extended workspace typically required in telesurgery. It can also be used for tool tracking and skills assessment. Due to the linear nature of the gearing relationships, it may also be well suited for implementing force feedback for telesurgery.

Author(s):  
Xiaoli Zhang ◽  
Carl A. Nelson

The size and limited dexterity of current surgical robotic systems are factors which limit their usefulness. To improve the level of assimilation of surgical robots in minimally invasive surgery (MIS), a compact, lightweight surgical robotic positioning mechanism with four degrees of freedom (DOF) (three rotational DOF and one translation DOF) is proposed in this paper. This spatial mechanism based on a bevel-gear wrist is remotely driven with three rotation axes intersecting at a remote rotation center (the MIS entry port). Forward and inverse kinematics are derived, and these are used for optimizing the mechanism structure given workspace requirements. By evaluating different spherical geared configurations with various link angles and pitch angles, an optimal design is achieved which performs surgical tool positioning throughout the desired kinematic workspace while occupying a small space bounded by a hemisphere of radius 13.7 cm. This optimized workspace conservatively accounts for collision avoidance between patient and robot or internally between the robot links. This resultant mechanism is highly compact and yet has the dexterity to cover the extended workspace typically required in telesurgery. It can also be used for tool tracking and skills assessment. Due to the linear nature of the gearing relationships, it may also be well suited for implementing force feedback for telesurgery.


Author(s):  
J. E. N. Jaspers ◽  
M. Shehata ◽  
F. Wijkhuizen ◽  
J. L. Herder ◽  
C. A. Grimbergen

Performing complex tasks in Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS) is demanding due to a disturbed hand-eye co-ordination, the use of non-ergonomic instruments with limited degrees of freedom (DOFs) and a lack of force feedback. Robotic telemanipulatory systems enhance surgical dexterity by providing up to 7 DOFs. They allow the surgeon to operate in an ergonomically favorable position with more intuitive manipulation of the instruments. Commercially available robotic systems, however, are very bulky, expensive and do not provide any force feedback. The aim of our study was to develop a simple mechanical manipulator for MIS. When manipulating the handle of the device, the surgeon’s wrist and grasping movements are directly transmitted to the deflectable instrument tip in 7 DOFs. The manipulator consists of a parallelogram mechanism with steel wires. First phantom experience indicated that the system functions properly. The MIM provides some force feedback improving safety. A set of MIMs seems to be an economical and compact alternative for robotic systems.


2010 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shorya Awtar ◽  
Tristan T. Trutna ◽  
Jens M. Nielsen ◽  
Rosa Abani ◽  
James Geiger

This paper presents a new minimally invasive surgical (MIS) tool design paradigm that enables enhanced dexterity, intuitive control, and natural force feedback in a low-cost compact package. The paradigm is based on creating a tool frame that is attached to the surgeon’s forearm, making the tool shaft an extension of the latter. Two additional wristlike rotational degrees of freedom (DoF) provided at an end-effector that is located at the end of the tool shaft are manually actuated via a novel parallel-kinematic virtual center mechanism at the tool input. The virtual center mechanism, made possible by the forearm-attached tool frame, creates a virtual two-DoF input joint that is coincident with the surgeon’s wrist, allowing the surgeon to rotate his/her hand with respect to his/her forearm freely and naturally. A cable transmission associated with the virtual center mechanism captures the surgeon’s wrist rotations and transmits them to the two corresponding end-effector rotations. This physical configuration allows an intuitive and ergonomic one-to-one mapping of the surgeon’s forearm and hand motions at the tool input to the end-effector motions at the tool output inside the patient’s body. Moreover, a purely mechanical construction ensures low-cost, simple design, and natural force feedback. A functional decomposition of the proposed physical configuration is carried out to identify and design key modules in the system—virtual center mechanism, tool handle and grasping actuation, end-effector and output joint, transmission system, tool frame and shaft, and forearm brace. Development and integration of these modules leads to a proof-of-concept prototype of the new MIS tool, referred to as FlexDex™, which is then tested by a focused end-user group to evaluate its performance and obtain feedback for the next stage of technology development.


Author(s):  
Chin-Hsing Kuo ◽  
Jian S. Dai

In robotically-assisted minimally invasive surgery (MIS), the provision of a decoupled remote center-of-motion (RCM) kinematics is a critical design challenge for surgical robots. However, although there have been numerous RCM robots developed, a fully decoupled four-degrees-of-freedom (DOF) RCM mechanism is still highly anticipated. In this paper, a 4-DOF parallel manipulator with a fully decoupled RCM is presented. First, the kinematic structure of the manipulator is described. Then, the fully decoupled motion, i.e., each of the four DOFs of the end-effector can be independently controlled by one corresponding actuated joint, is verified. Further, the inverse kinematics solutions are derived and the reachable workspace of tool tip is analyzed. As a result, the proposed manipulator is a feasible candidate for providing a fully decoupled surgical tool motion for minimally invasive surgery.


2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kang Kong ◽  
Jianmin Li ◽  
Huaifeng Zhang ◽  
Jinhua Li ◽  
Shuxin Wang

Robot-assisted minimally invasive surgery (MIS) has shown tremendous advances over the traditional techniques. To improve dexterity and back-drivability of the existing planar remote center-of-motion (RCM) mechanism, on which an active prismatic joint is required to drive the surgical tool move in–out of the patient's body, a two degrees-of-freedom (DOFs) planar RCM mechanism is proposed by constructing virtual parallelograms in this paper. The mechanism can be considered as a generalized double parallelogram; both of the actuated joints are revolute joints. This feature enhances the intrinsic back-drivability of the mechanism. The mathematical framework is introduced first to prove that the mechanism could execute RCM. Then, the inverse kinematics of the planar mechanism is solved, and the Jacobian matrix is derived in this paper. Further, the singularity and the kinematic performance based on the kinematic equations are investigated, and the workspace of the mechanism is verified. Finally, a prototype was built to test the function of the proposed RCM mechanism. The results show that the mechanism can fulfill the constraint of MIS, and it can be used as the basic element of the active manipulator in an MIS robot.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Devin R. Berg ◽  
Perry Y. Li ◽  
Arthur G. Erdman

Existing robotic surgical platforms face limitations which include the balance between the scale of the robot and its capability in terms of range of motion, load capacity, and tool manipulation. These limitations can be overcome by taking advantage of fluid power as an enabling technology with its inherent power density and controllability. As a proof-of-concept for this approach, we are pursuing the design of a novel, dexterous robotic surgical tool targeted towards transgastric natural orifice surgery.The design for this hydraulic surgical platform and the corresponding analysis are presented to demonstrate the theoretical system performance in terms of tool positioning and input requirements. The design involves a combination of a novel 3D valve, hydraulic artificial muscles, and multi-segmented flexible manipulator arms that fit in the lumen of an endoscope. A dynamic model of the system is created. Numerical simulations show that a hydraulic endoscopic surgical robot can produce the desired performance without using large external manipulators such as those employed by conventional surgical robots. They also provide insight into the component interactions and input response of the system. Future work will include manufacturing a prototype to validate the concept and the numerical models.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 2558
Author(s):  
Mario Troise ◽  
Matteo Gaidano ◽  
Pierpaolo Palmieri ◽  
Stefano Mauro

The rising interest in soft robotics, combined to the increasing applications in the space industry, leads to the development of novel lightweight and deployable robotic systems, that could be easily contained in a relatively small package to be deployed when required. The main challenges for soft robotic systems are the low force exertion and the control complexity. In this manuscript, a soft manipulator concept, having inflatable links, is introduced to face these issues. A prototype of the inflatable link is manufactured and statically characterized using a pseudo-rigid body model on varying inflation pressure. Moreover, the full robot model and algorithms for the load and pose estimation are presented. Finally, a control strategy, using inverse kinematics and an elastostatic approach, is developed. Experimental results provide input data for the control algorithm, and its validity domain is discussed on the basis of a simulation model. This preliminary analysis puts the basis of future advancements in building the robot prototype and developing dynamic models and robust control.


Robotica ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Paolo Di Lillo ◽  
Gianluca Antonelli ◽  
Ciro Natale

SUMMARY Control algorithms of many Degrees-of-Freedom (DOFs) systems based on Inverse Kinematics (IK) or Inverse Dynamics (ID) approaches are two well-known topics of research in robotics. The large number of DOFs allows the design of many concurrent tasks arranged in priorities, that can be solved either at kinematic or dynamic level. This paper investigates the effects of modeling errors in operational space control algorithms with respect to uncertainties affecting knowledge of the dynamic parameters. The effects on the null-space projections and the sources of steady-state errors are investigated. Numerical simulations with on-purpose injected errors are used to validate the thoughts.


Micromachines ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 640
Author(s):  
Linshuai Zhang ◽  
Shuoxin Gu ◽  
Shuxiang Guo ◽  
Takashi Tamiya

A teleoperated robotic catheter operating system is a solution to avoid occupational hazards caused by repeated exposure radiation of the surgeon to X-ray during the endovascular procedures. However, inadequate force feedback and collision detection while teleoperating surgical tools elevate the risk of endovascular procedures. Moreover, surgeons cannot control the force of the catheter/guidewire within a proper range, and thus the risk of blood vessel damage will increase. In this paper, a magnetorheological fluid (MR)-based robot-assisted catheter/guidewire surgery system has been developed, which uses the surgeon’s natural manipulation skills acquired through experience and uses haptic cues to generate collision detection to ensure surgical safety. We present tests for the performance evaluation regarding the teleoperation, the force measurement, and the collision detection with haptic cues. Results show that the system can track the desired position of the surgical tool and detect the relevant force event at the catheter. In addition, this method can more readily enable surgeons to distinguish whether the proximal force exceeds or meets the safety threshold of blood vessels.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 2346
Author(s):  
Alessandro Tringali ◽  
Silvio Cocuzza

The minimization of energy consumption is of the utmost importance in space robotics. For redundant manipulators tracking a desired end-effector trajectory, most of the proposed solutions are based on locally optimal inverse kinematics methods. On the one hand, these methods are suitable for real-time implementation; nevertheless, on the other hand, they often provide solutions quite far from the globally optimal one and, moreover, are prone to singularities. In this paper, a novel inverse kinematics method for redundant manipulators is presented, which overcomes the above mentioned issues and is suitable for real-time implementation. The proposed method is based on the optimization of the kinetic energy integral on a limited subset of future end-effector path points, making the manipulator joints to move in the direction of minimum kinetic energy. The proposed method is tested by simulation of a three degrees of freedom (DOF) planar manipulator in a number of test cases, and its performance is compared to the classical pseudoinverse solution and to a global optimal method. The proposed method outperforms the pseudoinverse-based one and proves to be able to avoid singularities. Furthermore, it provides a solution very close to the global optimal one with a much lower computational time, which is compatible for real-time implementation.


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