Design of a slave robot for laparoscopic, thoracoscopic surgery

Conventional Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS) generally provides the surgeon with an uncomfortable body posture, limited force feedback and unnatural eye-handcoordination when manipulating camera and instruments through small incisions. A masterslave system with force-feedback is being developed, since such a system can overcome the inconveniences of MIS. This paper is about the design of the slave robot for MIS in the abdomen and chest. By applying design principles on kinematically and statically determined design: hysteresis of position is minimized; and stresses, deformations and dynamical behaviour are highly predictable. This improves the reliability of the robot.