Design and implementation of a hand-held robot-assisted minimally invasive surgical device with enhanced intuitive manipulability and stable grip force

Background: The conventional hand-held minimally invasive surgical devices commonly suffer from non-intuitive manipulability and restricted flexibility for operation.

Methods: A hand-held surgical device with enhanced intuitive manipulability and stable grip force was proposed for minimally invasive surgery (MIS). The dexterous instrument and isomorphic handle were designed, and the cable transmission structure and model of the instrument were analysed. A modelling method for grip force pre-compensation was proposed to produce stable grip forces under different posture.

Results: The prototype of the proposed MIS device was developed, and the related experiments were carried out. The maximum opening angle error was 1.2°. Compared with the non-compensation model, the variation of grip force reduced 8 times with the pre-compensation model. The animal vivo experiments verified the feasibility and practicability of the device.

Conclusions: The proposed hand-held device could provide intuitive manipulability and stable operation, which contributes to the performance improvement of the MIS.