A simple and compact parallel robotic wrist for laparoscopy

Abstract

Current surgical robotic systems tend to be large, cumbersome and difficult to configure for a specific procedure. They use to need a large operation room time consuming. This work presents advances in the development of a prototype of surgical parallel robotic wrist for laparoscopic procedures. This wrist is small, compact and easy to configure. The paper details the mechanical design of the current prototype (version 2), its kinematic analysis and, mainly, it centers on the teleoperation control scheme. The first results of the behavior of the prototype in the operation room are shown. The main features of the parallel wrist are the small dimensions (120×80×80 mm) and weigth (420 gr), its modular design that allows to mount the wrist over the patient and the ability to estimate the forces at the tip of the surgical tool without the need of a force sensor.