Introduction: Most robotic instruments and their drives still risk residual contamination due cleaning complexities, rendering them limited reusable, and tend to have larger instruments than the 5mm laparoscopic standard. The novel steerable laparoscopic SATA-LRS uses modularity for cleanability and exchangeability. The SATA-Drive: a robotic driver designed for the actuation of a 3mm scaled version of the SATA-LRS is presented.
Methods: A modular, expandable gear mechanism was designed to efficiently rotate and translate the instrument shafts. The 3mm SATA-LRS is controlled as proof. An user-experiment is conducted to test the (de)coupling of the instrument to and from the drive.
Results: A video shows the SATA-Driver successfully articulating, rotating and grasping the end-effector. End-effector exchange is possible in 29 (10) seconds, while complete instrument coupling requires 21 (6) seconds and de-coupling requires 16 (7) seconds.
Discussion: The drive has effectively transformed a non-surgical robot arm into a system similar to robot assisted laparoscopy. The modularity of the drive’s segmented build can easily be adapted and could benefit the adoption of future instruments. The SATA-LRS’s cleanability features and its end-effector changes without disassembly are expected to benefit medical robotics. The 3mm SATA-LRS shows the instrument’s potential for mini-laparoscopy.
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