A Flexible Surgical Instrument for Robot-Assisted Minimally Invasive Surgery

In a narrow surgical space, flexible surgical instruments offer advantages over rigid counterparts in terms of operational dexterity. To this end, a flexible surgical instrument was designed in this study to realize dexterous motion using multiple segments in a series under wire-driven operation, satisfying the motion requirements of minimally invasive surgical operations. The forward and inverse kinematics of the instrument were solved using the geometrical method and the Newton–Raphson method, and the kinematics models were verified using a prototype. Experiments were conducted to verify the performance of the prototype device; the results showed that the time required for a kinematic solution was less than 0.1 ms. In addition, the device could flexibly reach the designated position in a narrow and long operating space and had excellent motion accuracy. Finally, it was verified that the prototype device had a certain load capacity.