Design and development of a robotic assistant for uterus manipulation in total laparoscopic hysterectomy

Abstract

A new robotic system which assists surgeons in manipulating the uterus manipulator during total laparoscopic hysterectomy is presented in this paper. The presented robotic system is of four degrees of freedom (DOF) which composed of a 3-DOF robotic uterus manipulator positioner and a 1-DOF motorized uterus manipulator. To ensure safety of the patient, actuated joints of the uterus manipulator are designed to satisfy specific geometric arrangement to create a remote center of motion (RCM) to be placed inside the patient's body for uterus manipulation. Furthermore, to reduce control complexity, joint motions of the presented robotic system are designed to be decoupled. Coordination among joints is not required when performing typical uterus manipulating motions. A 1-DOF motorized uterus manipulator with an angle-adjustable tip is designed and developed to tackle with situations of special anatomical needs of patients. Design and kinematics of the robotic system are presented in this paper. Experiments are also conducted both individually and on manikin to verify the performance of the built prototype.