A laser sintered miniature gear hub for a surgical robot and the maximum torque it can transmit

Abstract

Our goal is to develop a surgical robot for minimally invasive surgery using selective laser sintering (SLS) of the polyamide PA2200. To drive the robot, we need a reliable interface to attach digital servomotors. Therefore we designed and fabricated a gear hub for a digital servomotor with a maximum torque of 24 Ncm. In an experiment we investigated the maximum torque the laser sintered gear hub can transmit with an error probability of 0.05%. The results show that such a gear hub is suitable for the application in the field of surgical robotics. In this paper we also present a simplified geometrical description for the construction of the gear hub and two minimally invasive interventions, which are in the focus of our research project.