A three-armed slave-manipulator with snake-like instruments for laparoscopic surgery

The use and development of robotic systems in the clinical context is steadily increasing. In this paper, a novel, mechatronics fully-integrated and hybrid robotic system for minimally invasive surgery is presented. The focus for this work is to combine the advantages of the existing systems like MultiPort, Single-Port or NOTES. Through the use of three flexible instruments there exists a completely free steerable end-effector for surgical procedures. In addition to the described mechanical and electrical components, a modular concept is presented, in which the individual tools can be combined and interchanges arbitrarily. This is possible due to a ROS-based middleware infrastructure, which uses both network and bus technologies.