Page 19 - Flexible Robotics in Medicine

CHAPTER 1

Slender snake-like endoscopic robots

in surgery

Shumei Yu 1,2 , Wenjun Xu 3,4 and Hongliang Ren 5
1 2 3
Suzhou University, P.R. China, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Department of
4
Biomedical Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Peng Cheng Laboratory,
5
Shenzhen, P.R. China, Department of Biomedical Engineering, National University of Singapore,
Singapore

For surgery, the targets inside the human body have complicated anatomical structures, which
make access to the operating region challenging with high risks of bleeding and infections.
Though keyhole surgical robots with articulatedarmshelpsurgeonsto overcome the access
difficulties in part, narrow and curved cavities require robots to be more compact and flexible.
Thus snake-like robots are developed to cater to the demand because of their slim body and
hyperredundancy in movement. This survey presents state-of-the-art knowledge about snake-
like robots for robotic surgeries. We have investigated the commercial products, representative
research prototypes, and new mechanical designs of the surgery-oriented snake-like robots.
Additionally, for safe and precise humanrobot interaction, modeling, sensing, and control of
snake-like robots have been summarized.

1.1 Introduction

As engineering and medical science developed, robotics in the surgical field has made
significant progress in the aspects of accuracy, efficiency, and safety. Among the boom of
surgical robots market, the successful units in corresponding surgical areas include Da Vinci
in laparoscopic surgery, CyberKnife in radiosurgery, MAKOplasty in a knee or hip
replacement, Renaissance in spine surgery. These units break through the traditional
operations by minimal invasiveness, clearer field of view, accurate targeting, navigation, and
manipulation. Nevertheless, for the complex anatomical structures with narrow and curly
cavities, such as a paranasal sinus, nasal cavity, antrum auris, pharynx, and larynx, it is
difficult to reach and operate by traditional devices. Although endoscopic technology has
been developed, surgeons have to deflect their attention partially to manipulations from
inspections. The migration of industrial robots is facing challenges with narrow and curly

Flexible Robotics in Medicine.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-817595-8.00017-1 1
© 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.