TiBCLaG: A Trigger-induced Bistable Compliant Laparoscopic Grasper
This addresses cost reduction in medical devices for laparoscopic surgery, but it is incremental as it builds on existing compliant mechanism concepts.
The paper tackles the high manufacturing costs of industrial laparoscopic graspers by designing a monolithic, compliant, bistable grasper that reduces part count, with a prototype demonstrating reliable bistable actuation via 3D printing.
Industrial laparoscopic graspers use multi-link rigid mechanisms manufactured to tight tolerances, resulting in high manufacturing and assembly costs. This work presents the design and proof-of-concept validation of a monolithic, fully compliant, bistable, laparoscopic grasper that eliminates the need for multiple rigid links, thereby reducing part count. The device integrates a compliant trigger and a compliant gripper end-effector, coupled via a control push-rod, to achieve stable grasping without continuous user input. The trigger mechanism is synthesized using a Two-Element Beam Constraint Model as a design framework to control the deformation and stiffness of V-beam-like elements. This technique enables elastic energy storage while preventing snap-through instability. The end-effector is designed as a compliant gripper to achieve adaptive grasping through elastic deformation. Jaws' opening-and-closing performance is demonstrated using nonlinear finite element analysis. The laparoscopic design presented here is fabricated using fused deposition 3D printing. The fabricated prototype demonstrates reliable bistable actuation, confirming the feasibility of such compliant laparoscopic grasper architectures.