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Flexible steerable manipulator utilizing complementary configuration 93

4.3.6 Metrics benchmarking

Based on the benchmarking research, there are a few companies that manufacture flexible
endoscopes. The major market participants are Olympus, Pentax, Fujinon, and Olympus
Gyrus ACMI. With the popular demand for minimally invasive surgery, an endoscope is a
favored option for both doctors and patients. Table 4.2 shows the benchmarks with three
selected commonly used devices in the market, Olympus fiber rhinolaryngoscope (ENF-
T3), Pentax EE-1540, and rigid biopsy forceps.

4.4 Patentability analysis

Our design utilizes a cable-driven actuation mechanism for the flexible, steerable
manipulator, as we deem cable-driven systems to have a higher potential in being fabricated
at the scale required for application in the transluminal cavity. Therefore we focus mainly
on state-of-the-art cable-driven flexible manipulators instead of patents pertaining to the
other abovementioned actuation methods, which have little relevance to the design.

Relevant patents were consolidated mainly from searching the USPTO database, and the
search engine Google Patents was used. This section provides an overview of each step that
was carried out as part of the search strategy.

4.4.1 R1: search by keywords

Table 4.3 lists the keywords and their rationale for use in the preliminary search.

4.4.2 Relevant patents for analysis

From the patent search strategy, we were able to compile a list of patents that were relevant
to the design in various ways to obtain a set of final search results. The patents in this set of

Table 4.2: Metrics benchmarking with selective endoscopes.
Olympus rhinolaryngoscope Olympus This
Metric Unit (ENF-T3) Pentax EE-1540 A4832 work
Diameter mm Inner: 2.2 Inner: 2.0 2.3 3
Outer: 4.8 Outer: 5.1
Angle of curvature Degrees 130 (up and down) 210 (up) 30 147
120 (down)
Intuitive in Yes/No Yes Yes Yes Yes
manipulate
Bendable length mm 365 600 380 390