Design and Analysis of a Novel Laparoscopic Instrument for Measuring the in Vivo Biomechanical Characteristics of Large Intra-abdominal Organs

Nazarinasab, Dariush; Mirbagheri, Alireza; Farahmand, Farzam; Afshari, Elnaz

doi:10.22041/ijbme.2014.13258

Design and Analysis of a Novel Laparoscopic Instrument for Measuring the in Vivo Biomechanical Characteristics of Large Intra-abdominal Organs

Document Type : Full Research Paper

Authors

Dariush Nazarinasab ¹

Alireza Mirbagheri ²

Farzam Farahmand ³

Elnaz Afshari ⁴

¹ M.Sc., Mechanical Eng. Dept., Sharif University of Technology

² Assistant Professor, Dept. of Medical Physics & Biomedical Eng., School of Medicine & Research Center for Biomedical Technologies & Robotics (RCBTR), Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS)

³ Professor, Mechanical Eng. Dept., Sharif University of Technology

⁴ Ph.D. student, Biomedical Eng. Dept., Amirkabir University of Technology

https://doi.org/10.22041/ijbme.2014.13258

Abstract

During laparoscopy surgery, the surgeon cannot touch the tissues directly by his/her hand. As a result, he is not able to use tactile sensing for evaluating the tissues’ mechanical behavior and diagnosing their normal/pathological conditions. Furthermore in vivo biomechanical characteristics of Intraabdominal soft tissues are among the main data required for surgery simulator softwares. The purpose of this research was to design and analyze a robotic surgical instrument which could grasp and compress the intra-abdominal large soft tissues and provide their force-displacement characteristics. The designed device is analogous to a robotic hand with two fingers, which are opened and closed using a parallelogram mechanism. A combined mechanism, including two connected sliding links and a compensatory cam, are used to prevent the fingers horizontal motion and keep the contact area fixed. The results of the kinematics analysis indicate the efficacy of the designed mechanism to provide pure vertical motion in fingers, parallel to each other. Also, the results of dynamic analysis indicate that, after dimensional optimization, the maximum force required at the actuator is 65 N, to apply a 10 N compressive force to the tissue at the middle of grasping range.

Keywords

Soft tissue

Robotic hand

Elastometry

laparoscopy

Robotic surgery instrument

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