Dumpert Jason, Lehman Amy C, Wood Nathan A, Oleynikov Dmitry, Farritor Shane M
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE 68588-0656, USA.
Annu Int Conf IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc. 2009;2009:266-9. doi: 10.1109/IEMBS.2009.5332800.
Natural Orifice Translumenal Endoscopic Surgery (NOTES) is potentially the next step in minimally invasive surgery. This type of procedure could reduce patient trauma through eliminating external incisions, but poses many surgical challenges that are not sufficiently overcome with current flexible endoscopy tools. A robotic platform that attempts to emulate a laparoscopic interface for performing NOTES procedures is being developed to address these challenges. These robots are capable of entering the peritoneal cavity through the upper gastrointestinal tract, and once inserted are not constrained by incisions, allowing for visualization and manipulations throughout the cavity. In addition to using these miniature in vivo robots for NOTES procedures, these devices can also be used to perform semi-autonomous surgical tasks. Such tasks could be useful in situations where the patient is in a location far from a trained surgeon. A surgeon at a remote location could control the robot even if the communication link between surgeon and patient has low bandwidth or very high latency. This paper details work towards using the miniature robot to perform simple surgical tasks autonomously.
自然腔道内镜手术(NOTES)可能是微创手术的下一步发展方向。这类手术可通过消除外部切口来减少患者创伤,但也带来了许多手术挑战,而现有的柔性内镜工具尚无法充分应对这些挑战。为应对这些挑战,正在研发一种试图模拟腹腔镜接口以执行NOTES手术的机器人平台。这些机器人能够通过上消化道进入腹腔,一旦插入后便不受切口限制,从而能够对整个腹腔进行可视化观察和操作。除了将这些微型体内机器人用于NOTES手术外,这些设备还可用于执行半自主手术任务。在患者所处位置远离训练有素的外科医生的情况下,此类任务可能会很有用。即使外科医生与患者之间的通信链路带宽较低或延迟非常高,远程位置的外科医生也能够控制机器人。本文详细介绍了使用微型机器人自主执行简单手术任务的相关工作。