Design and Development of a Robotic Manipulator
for Gynaecological Laparoscopy
Laparoscopic surgery, also known as minimally invasive surgery is carried out using special camera and instruments inserted through small incisions of the abdominal wall.Widely used in gynaecology
and obstetrics due to,
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Small scars​
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Shorter hospital stay
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Shorter recovery time
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There are mainly three doctors involved in gynaecological laparoscopy.
The main surgeon, the first assistant doctor holding the laparoscope and the
second assistant doctor who manually handles the uterine positioner under verbal
commands of the main surgeon.
There are 4 basic motions performed by the second assistant :
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Anteversion/ retroversion
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Lateral motion
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Tensioning
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Twisting
A 5DOF robotic manipulator is proposed to reproduce above four motions.
Proposed setup
The gesture controller interface via the LEAP Motion hand gesture controller allows the surgeon to perform all the basic motions using intuitive hand gestures.
Gestures enable touchless interaction with RUPA thus more viable in the operation
The surgeon gets the position feedback from the laparoscope video feed.
The mechanical structure of the manipulator was optimized (total weight less than 2.5 kg). so that RUPA can easily be fixed to the side rail of the surgical bed.
A more descriptive article was published in ICCAR 2022. Therefore, results and more figures are not added here.
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