Design of Medical Simulators in Obstetrics
Résumé
Minimally Invasive Surgery represents the future of many types of medical inter- ventions such as keyhole neurosurgey or transluminal endoscopic surgery. These procedures involve insertion of surgical instruments such as needles and endoscopes into human body through small incision/ body cavity for biopsy and drug delivery. However, nearly all surgical instruments for these procedures are inserted manu- ally and there is a long learning curve for surgeons to use them properly. Many research efforts have been made to design active instruments (endoscope, needles) to improve this procedure during last decades. New robot mechanisms have been used to improve the dexterity of current endoscope. In recent years, several con- tinuum robots have been investigated as mechanisms for medical surgery. Those are characterized by the fact that their mechanical components do not have rigid links and discrete joints in contrast with traditional robot manipulators. The de- sign of these robots are inspired by movements of natural animals such as tongues, elephant trunks and tentacles. The unusual compliance and redundant degrees of freedom of these robots provide strong potential to achieve delicate tasks success- fully even in cluttered and unstructured environments. This chapter will present a complete application of continuum robot, called Colobot, for Minimally Invasive Surgery of colonoscopy. This system is composed of a micro-robotic tip, a set of position sensors and a real-time control system for guiding the exploration of colon. Details will be described on the modeling of the pneumatic actuators used, the design of the mechanical component, the kinematic model analysis and the control strategy for automatically guiding the progression of the device inside the human colon. Experimental results will be presented to check the performances of the whole system within a transparent tube.