Assemblable hand for laparoscopic surgery with ultrasound probes

We have proposed robotic assemblable hands that can be assembled inside the abdominal cavity to grasp and manipulate large internal organs. This paper presents a new assemblable two-fingered five-degree-of-freedom hand with ultrasound probes installed on its fingertips. When an internal organ can transmit ultrasound, the opposite finger that grasps it can also be detected by the ultrasound probe in general. Gel pieces with metal markers on its top and bottom surfaces are attached to the fingertips. The relative position and orientation of the two fingers can be obtained by processing a B-mode image of the markers on the bottom surface. When the gel piece makes contact with an internal organ, the positions of the markers on the top surface shift, which can provide contact information to the operator. The developed hand proposes new usage in such a way that an internal organ is diagnosed while it is grasped or manipulated. We developed an assemblable hand and conducted experiments using it.