Development of a single port dual arm robotically steerable endoscope for neurosurgical applications

Abstract

Single-port surgical robots have gained popularity due to less patient trauma and quicker post-surgery recovery. However, due to limited access provided by a single incision, the miniaturization and maneuverability of these robots still needs to be improved. In this paper, we propose the design of a single-port, dual-arm robotically steerable endoscope containing one steerable major cannula and two steerable minor cannulas. By integrating the proposed nine degrees-of-freedom (DoFs) robotically steerable endoscope with an industrial robotic arm and a joystick controller, this robotic system can potentially achieve intuitive, and remote multi-arm manipulation capability. We present the design of the robotically steerable endoscope consisting of tendon-driven joints controlled by a compact actuation system and derive the kinematic and static models. We validate the derived models using different kinematic trajectories with an average RMSE value of 0.98 mm and 0.66 mm for the distal tip position errors of the two steerable minor cannulas.