Toward new minimally invasive surgical robotic system

This paper present a new laparoscopic surgical setup (minimally invasive surgery, MIS) with spherical serial surgical robot. The robot was developed at the PPRIME Institute in the ROBIOSS team from Poitiers University. Based on laparoscopic surgery, specification for workspace and constraints are outlined and the architecture selected for the surgical robots is presented and discussed. Analytical models of the inverse and forward kinematics are provided together with a detailed analysis of mobility and constraints. The proposed approach is based on motion capture of an expert gestures during which an anastomosis technique has to be performed. The evaluation of the workspace is based on the use of the Vicon Nexus motion capture system. The medical gestures were analyzed in term of position and velocities; the result has been used in the definition of the kinematics specifications of the proposed manipulator. The effective workspace size is determined through an experimental study on a simulator. The spherical serial robot (3R-T) has been selected because of its characteristics meeting the constraint requirements. The robot and its environment are described.