A Rolling-Tip Flexible Instrument for Minimally Invasive Surgery

Snake-like robots are commonly used in Minimally Invasive Surgery as they are able to reach areas deep inside the human body. These robots have instruments that are deployed out of the robot's head and controlled via tendons, which connect the instrument to motors at the proximal end. In most currently available systems the instruments are lacking a rolling motion of the end-effector. In this paper, we present a new instrument prototype for a snake-like robot that can perform a stable in-place rolling motion. The prototype has a diameter of 4mm, uses 13 tendons and has 6 degrees of freedom. The robot can bend and roll to high angles, and strongly improves the dexterity compared to an instrument without rolling capabilities. In the evaluation we show that the rolling-tip gripper can rotate about 165. and is capable of applying forces up to 6.5N.