A prototype of a laparoscope holder operated by a surgeon through head and jaw movements

Abstract

A robotic device that allows a surgeon to operate a laparoscope by itself through commands based on the head and the jaw movements has been prototyped. This robotic device has a unique head-mounted interface to measure surgeon’s head inclination angles in horizontal and vertical directions and detects the degree of contraction of temporal muscles that always acts under jaw movements by using sensors. Surgeons can easily operate the robotic device and control the area of scope view inside of the abdominal cavity through the head inclination angle and the voluntary effort of bite with back teeth during the surgical operations with both hands. The excellent operability of a prototype has been presented through an evaluation test under a simulated surgery task inside a training box. In addition, the high potential of the proposed system to make the surgeons possible to perform an extirpative surgery of cancer on gallbladder or liver under its own laparoscope operation through a test of an animal model.