Robotic Sewing and Knot Tying for Personalized Stent Graft Manufacturing

摘要

This paper presents a versatile robotic system for sewing a 3D structured object. Leveraging on using a customized robotic sewing device and closed-loop visual servoing control, an all-in-one solution for sewing personalized stent graft is demonstrated. Stitch size planning and automated knot tying are proposed as two key functions of the system. By using effective stitch size planning, sub-millimetre sewing accuracy is achieved for stitch sizes ranging from 2mm to 5mm. In addition, a thread manipulator for thread management and tension control is also proposed to perform successive knot tying to secure each stitch. Detailed laboratory experiments have been performed to evaluate the proposed instruments and allied algorithms. The proposed framework can be generalised to a wide range of applications including 3D industrial sewing, as well as transferred to other clinical areas such as surgical suturing.