Flexible Robotics

Highly dexterous 2‐module soft robot for intra‐organ navigation in minimally invasive surgery

“…From the patient's point of view, the advantages of MIS may outweigh the complications by a significant margin. However, for surgeons the difficulties encountered in properly manoeuvring instruments in a constrained and sensitive workspace such as the human body's internal organs impose significant limitations . The workspace of a typical laparoscopic tool is in the form of a cone (or multiple cones) having its apex at the entry point, i.e.…”

STIFF-FLOP surgical manipulator: Mechanical design and experimental characterization of the single module

“…In addition especially in the case of laparo-endoscopic singlesite surgery (LESS) [2] and natural orifice transluminal endoscopic surgery (NOTES), rigid or semi-rigid tools may lead to significant clashing of instrumentation and increase the complexity of the procedures [3]. Flexible endoscopes can be used for NOTES or LESS; indeed thanks to their high flexibility, they may allow to reach the surgical target while being inserted remotely or by a natural orifice.…”

Soft Robotics: Review of Fluid‐Driven Intrinsically Soft Devices; Manufacturing, Sensing, Control, and Applications in Human‐Robot Interaction

“…Since such procedures are mainly executed using rigid or semi‐rigid tools with limited dexterity, flexibility, and maneuverability; this procedure often requires up to five trocar accesses. Moreover, these instruments easily clash during the operation increasing the overall complexity of the procedure . New robotic technologies can ease the task of the surgeons, guarantee accuracy, predictability, and repeatability to restore a surgeon's intuition to the robotic procedure and provide additional tip dexterity.…”