Design, development, and testing of an automated laparoscopic grasper with 3-D force measurement capability

Abstract

Advancements in robotics have led to significant improvements in robot-assisted minimally invasive surgery. The use of these robotic systems has improved surgeon dexterity, reduced surgeon fatigue, and made remote surgical procedures possible. However, commercially available robotic surgical systems do not provide any haptic feedback to the surgeon. Just as palpation in open procedures helps the surgeon diagnose the tissue as normal or abnormal, it is necessary to provide force feedback to the surgeon in robot-assisted minimally invasive procedures. Therefore, a need exists to incorporate force feedback in laparoscopic tools for robot-assisted surgery. This paper describes our design of a laparoscopic grasper with tri-directional force measurement capability at the grasping jaws. The laparoscopic tool can measure grasping forces and lateral and longitudinal forces, such as those forces encountered in the probing of tissue. Initial testing of the prototype has shown its ability to accurately characterize artificial tissue samples of varying stiffness. © Springer-Verlag 2004.