Design and Development of In Vivo Robot for Biopsy

Abstract

In vivo robot is an emerging medical technology that could greatly help biopsy and surgery. This paper proposes to design and develop a miniature in vivo robot for biopsy as an add-on to the current endoscope. To allow more dexterity and flexibility, a four degree of freedom (DOF) robot manipulator is proposed. Accordingly, a wire actuated robot with articulated links like in a snake robot has been conceptualized. The robot was mathematically modeled and designed. To test the design, a 4-scaled aluminum model was manufactured. The kinematics of the model is verified experimentally. The four degree of freedom of the miniature robot are: a linear motion of the flexible shaft (first DOF); an axial rotation of the flexible shaft (second DOF); planar through differential wire movement (third DOF); and a combined wire motion for clipper action to take biopsy (fourth DOF). The proposed robot manipulator was modeled in SolidWorks and the kinematic and dynamic analysis was performed using the Robotics Toolbox in MATLAB.