Control Architecture and experimental validation of a Novel Surgical Robotic Instrument
This work addresses the problem of constrained surgical dexterity for minimally invasive surgery, representing an incremental improvement in robotic instrument design.
The paper tackles the limited range of movements in conventional laparoscopic instruments by presenting a control architecture for a 4-DOF flexible instrument, achieving validation with predicted jaw opening errors of 0.13° and 1.43° in simulations.
Minimally invasive surgery (MIS) reduces patient trauma and shortens recovery time; however, conventional laparoscopic instruments remain constrained by limited range of movements. This work presents the control architecture of a 4-DOF flexible laparoscopic instrument integrating distal bending, independent distal head rotation, shaft rotation, and a gripper, while maintaining a 10 mm diameter compatible with standard trocars. The actuation unit and SpaceMouse teleoperation are implemented on Raspberry Pi 5 with Motoron controllers. An analytical scissor-linkage model is derived and parameterized. The predicted jaw opening corresponds to CAD measurements (MAE 0.13{\textdegree}) and OptiTrack motion capture (MAE 1.43{\textdegree}). Integration with the ATHENA parallel robot is validated through a simulated pancreatic surgery procedure.