Mechanical Design of a Novel Surgical Laparoscopic Simulator for Telemedicine Assistance and Physician Training during Aerospace Applications

Abstract

Surgery in space requires enhancing the user's skills under the expert physician's remote guidance. Therefore, the Surgical Engineering Society, with Bioastronautics and Space Mechatronics Research Group have worked on a collaborative study from 2020 to 2021, resulting in the proposed project named "SP-LAP" which is a Medical Robot, defined as a Surgical Laparoscopic Simulation Platform integrated with multi-degree-of-freedom (multi-DOF) system. The analysis is focused on the mechanical design, telemedicine assistance, surgical training and human factors, considering aerospace engineering fundamentals. It has been chosen to evaluate the surgical performance and to develop the technical-clinical validation tests at Mars Analog Desert.