Development of the SJTU Unfoldable Robotic System (SURS) for Single Port Laparoscopy

Single-port laparoscopy (SPL) has attracted continuous attention in the past decade due to the potential of generating better surgical outcomes than the traditional multiport laparoscopy. In order to ease the challenging surgical manipulation tasks using manual tools in SPL, several robotic systems were constructed to provide surgeons an intuitive way to operate. With possible improvements identified, the SJTU unfoldable robotic system (SURS) for SPL is developed for improved system specifications. The SURS can be deployed into abdomen through a phi 12-mm port in its folded configuration and can then be unfolded for dual-arm surgical interventions with onboard 3-D visual guidance. A few key design concepts which lead to the specification improvements are elaborated. The design descriptions, kinematics modeling, actuation compensations, and experimental characterizations are detailed to demonstrate the potentials of the SURS.