Flexible Robotic Endoscopy Systems and the Future Ahead

Abstract

Robotics enables a variety of unconventional actuation strategies to be used for endoscopes, resulting in reduced trauma to the GI tract. For transmission of force to distally mounted endoscopic instruments, robotically actuated tendon sheath mechanisms are the current state of the art. Robotics in surgical endoscopy enables an ergonomic mapping of the surgeon movements to remotely control the slave arms as well as facilitating tissue manipulation. The learning curve for difficult procedures such as endoscopic submucosal dissection and full-thickness resection can be significantly reduced. Improved surgical outcomes are also observed from clinical and pre-clinical trials. The technology behind master-slave surgical robotics will continue to mature, with the addition of position and force sensors enabling better control and tactile feedback. More robotic assisted gastrointestinal (GI) luminal and Natural Orifice Transluminal Endoscopic Surgery (NOTES) systems are expected to be conducted in future, and gastroenterologists will have a key collaborative role to play.

Robot-Assisted Minimally Invasive Surgery—Surgical Robotics in the Data Age

“…RAMIS systems inherently provide a great platform for surgical innovation, given the fact that there is a digital data link between the surgeon console and the patient-side manipulators. While there has been a constant engineering development in all of the core components of RAMIS, i.e., the HMI, the patient-side applied surgical part, and the vision and control systems [27], radically new paradigms are emerging primarily due to the recent capability to use ML and more generic AI methods. AI has the potential to bridge the gap between the current limited application of autonomy and software capabilities already demonstrated in other industries (for example, starting with NLP and real-time annotation of scenes to anomaly detection), by combining robotics and surgical data science (SDS), and thereby, AI methods can improve therapy and patient outcome [28]- [32].…”

Frontiers of Robotic Gastroscopy: A Comprehensive Review of Robotic Gastroscopes and Technologies

“…No perioperative complications were encountered. However, it has not yet been granted FDA or CE marks approval because of the questions in sterilization procedures [ 68 ]. Potential virus or bacterial residues can cause cross-infection, especially when infectious diseases, e.g., COVID-19, are prone to pandemics.…”

Circular Path Generation for Toroidal Cavity Inspection

“…This is typically achieved by involving numerous individual joints. These may be actuated using conventional tethers, compressed or decompressed fluids, electromagnetically by coils or local motors in combination with gear boxes in the joints or even using piezoelectric elements for instance [12]. Possible configurations may be divided into those whose shape evolves with them being fed into the inner spaces of interest and after that cannot be changed anymore and more complex systems that are capable of freely transforming their shape at any time.…”