Development of a tethered epicardial crawler for minimally invasive cardiac therapies

This paper describes the development of a robotic surgical device to facilitate minimally invasive, beating-heart cardiac therapies that can be performed within the pericardium. The concept we propose is that the device be equipped with the ability to adhere to the surface of the epicardium and locomote to any position and orientation under the direct control of a physician. As compared to current minimally invasive cardiac robotics, our approach obviates cardiac stabilization, lung deflation, differential lung ventilation, and reinsertion of laparoscopic tools. These advantages will result in greater efficiency and reduced trauma for the administration of intrapericardial therapies. This paper describes the current design of the robotic device and presents preliminary results.