A FLEXIBLE DISTAL TIP WITH TWO DEGREES OF FREEDOM FOR ENHANCED DEXTERITY IN ENDOSCOPIC ROBOT SURGERY

摘要

A flexible distal tip with two degrees of freedom has been developed for endoscopic robot surgery. The flexible tip consists of a superelastic NiTi tube which can be bent from-90º to +90º in 2 directions by means of 4 cables. The improvement over previous devices is the combination of two degrees of freedom with a small diameter of only 5 mm. An additional advantage is the tool channel which enables the use of different instruments with this single device.