A Flexible Surgical Instrument for Robot-Assisted Minimally Invasive Surgery

In a narrow surgical space, flexible surgical instruments offer advantages over rigid counterparts in terms of operational dexterity. To this end, a flexible surgical instrument was designed in this study to realize dexterous motion using multiple segments in a series under wire-driven operation, satisfying the motion requirements of minimally invasive surgical operations. The forward and inverse kinematics of the instrument were solved using the geometrical method and the Newton-Raphson method, and the kinematics models were verified using a prototype. Experiments were conducted to verify the performance of the prototype device; the results showed that the time required for a kinematic solution was less than 0.1 ms. In addition, the device could flexibly reach the designated position in a narrow and long operating space and had excellent motion accuracy. Finally, it was verified that the prototype device had a certain load capacity.

Automated summary

A flexible surgical instrument was designed in this study to achieve dexterous motion using multiple segments, and its performance and motion accuracy were verified through experiments.