Pneumatically-driven hand-held forceps with wrist joint operated by built-in master controller

In this research, a compact surgical robot system is developed by using the existing skill of surgeons. The proposed system consists of forceps manipulator with a 2-DOF wrist joint and a 4-DOF passive holder supporting the forceps manipulator. The forceps manipulator is operated by a built-in master controller, integrated in the proximal side of the forceps. A master-slave type wrist joint, in which the master is integrated the hand-held forceps itself, is proposed. Moreover, intuitive operation is realized by an active transformation from the surgeon's wrist-rotation to the tip-rotation using an IMU and the pneumatic cylinders. The system provides surgeons with a compact system and an intuitive operation. Finally, we experimentally confirmed the joints and the tip rotation controls are satisfactory.