Modular Gripping Mechanism for Collaborative Robotic Endoscopic Lumbar Decompression (ELD) surgery

Endoscopic Lumbar Decompression (ELD) is a minimally invasive surgical procedure to remove the herniated disc material within the spinal canal. In a traditional approach, the clinician holds the endoscope and inserts the instruments into its lumen to reach the surgical window and perform the decompression surgery. Some steps, such as opening ligamentum flavum, benefit from the help of an assistant who can hold the endoscope while the surgeon is handling the working-sleeve to partially resect the ligament directly neighboring neural structures. This approach can be time-consuming and uncomfortable. To overcome this drawback of traditional ELD, a robotic approach using a collaborative robot to hold the endoscope is explored. It is essential that such system is modular and can be quickly coupled and released without harming the patient or damaging expensive endoscopes. In this context, a gripper with a dedicated actuation system that is safe, reliable and lightweight is proposed. This paper describes this novel mechanism for manual actuation of the gripper. The system offers the surgeon full control over the applied gripping force on the endoscope, omitting the need for an assistant to perform this task while handling the plurality of instruments involved in the procedure.