Background: The tendon-sheath mechanism provides flexibility but degrades the task performance of the flexible endoscopic robot because of the inherent backlash hysteresis problem. Previous studies have only focused on reducing backlash hysteresis.The goal of this study is to identify the backlash hysteresis criteria of surgical tool bending joints to maintain efficient surgical performance.
Methods:A test platform for a surgical tool has been developed that has initial backlash hysteresis under 5 and can adjust the backlash hysteresis intentionally. Performance variation has been investigated in three bench-top endoscopic tasks in which various backlash hysteresis conditions were intentionally adjusted.
Results:A clear drop-off in task performance has been observed when the backlash hysteresis of the bending joints was greater than 10 regardless of the type of task and link length.
Conclusions:The backlash hysteresis of surgical tool bending joints should be reduced to at least 10 to maintain efficient performance in robotic endoscopic surgery.
K E Y W O R D Sendoscopy, force control, human-machine interfaces, telesurgery
Background
Although various endoscopic surgery robots developed in previous studies are versatile and have high lesion accessibility, they have limitations in terms of reaching the target lesion through the curved path in the large intestine and providing a stable tasking environment for the operator.
Methods
An endoscopic surgery robot was developed for performing surgery in the large intestine. The robot was easily inserted into the target lesion in the curved colon through the mounted soft actuator and demonstrated high structural stiffness through the insertion of the sigmoidal auxiliary tendons.
Results
The robot was able to access the target lesion in the curved colon through teleoperation alone. Further, it was confirmed that the high structural stiffness overtube improved the overall task performance in the user test.
Conclusions
The proposed robotic system demonstrated the possibility and potential of performing advanced endoscopic surgery in the large intestine.
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