Automatic Instrument Changer for Robotic Microsurgical Systems

Abstract

This paper introduces a novel automatic instrument changer that allows for fast and precise tool changing in robot-assisted microsurgery. The importance of such a system is usually ignored and therefore most of the existing robotic surgical systems still require manual operation to change surgical instruments. To achieve automatic instrument changing, we apply a clamp mechanism which consists of an instrument adapter and an instrument holder. The instrument adapter creates a unified interface between the surgical instrument and the holder. The instrument holder clamps the instrument through the adapter. The instrument can be transferred to another holder when these two holders are connected. A prototype of the proposed automatic instrument changer was implemented and mounted on a surgical robot. The experimental results validate the capability of the prototypical design in automatic, precise, and fast instrument changing.