Analysis of a dexterous instrument for minimally invasive procedures, based on bellows actuators

Abstract

The paper presents a review of actuators for biomechatronic applications, especially for regionally bending of smart instruments for minimally invasive procedures. More detailed analysis was done for bellows actuators. For a system of three parallel bellows an FEM study was performed. For different acting pressures FE results were compared with the analytical solution. The obtained results validate the methods and open future works in this field.