Development of An In Vivo Robotic Camera for Dexterous Manipulation and Clear Imaging

Minimally invasive surgeriy (MIS) techniques are becoming more popular as replacements for traditional open surgeries. These methods benefit patients with lowering blood loss and post-operative pain, reducing recovery period and hospital stay time, decreasing surgical area scarring and cosmetic issues, and lessening the treatment costs, hence greater patient satisfaction would be earned. Manipulating surgical instruments from outside of abdomen and performing surgery needs precise hand-eye coordination which is provided by insertable cameras. The traditional MIS insertable cameras suffer from port complexity and reduced manipulation dexterity, which leads to defection in Hand-eye coordination and surgical flow. Fully insertable robotic camera systems emerged as a promising solution in MIS. Implementing robotic camera systems faces multiple challenges in fixation, manipulation, orientation control, tool-tissue interaction, in vivo illumination and clear imaging.In this dissertation a novel actuation and control mechanism is developed and validated for an insertable laparoscopic camera. This design uses permanent magnets and coils as force/torque generators in an external control unit to manipulate an in vivo camera capsule. The motorless design of this capsule reduces the, wight, size and power consumption of the driven unit. In order to guarantee the smooth motion of the camera inside the abdominal cavity, an interaction force control method was proposed and validated.Optimizing the system\u27s design, through minimizing the control unit size and power consumption and extending maneuverability of insertable camera, was achieved by a novel transformable design, which uses a single permanent magnet in the control unit. The camera robot uses a permanent magnet as fixation and translation unit, and two embedded motor for tilt motion actuation, as well as illumination actuation. Transformable design provides superior imaging quality through an optimized illumination unit and a cleaning module. The illumination module uses freeform optical lenses to control light beams from the LEDs to achieve optimized illumination over surgical zone. The cleaning module prevents lens contamination through a pump actuated debris prevention system, while mechanically wipes the lens in case of contamination. The performance of transformable design and its modules have been assessed experimentally

s-CAM: An Untethered Insertable Laparoscopic Surgical Camera Robot with Non-Contact Actuation

Fully insertable robotic imaging devices represent a promising future of minimally invasive laparoscopic vision. Emerging research efforts in this field have resulted in several proof-of-concept prototypes. One common drawback of these designs derives from their clumsy tethering wires which not only cause operational interference but also reduce camera mobility. In this paper, a tetherless insertable surgical camera (s-CAM) robot with non-contact transabdominal actuation is presented for single-incision laparoscopic vision. Wireless video transmission and control communication using onboard power help eliminate cumbersome tethering wires. Furthermore, magnetic based camera actuation gets rid of intrinsic physical constraints of mechanical driving mechanisms, thereby improving camera mobility and reducing operational interference. In addition, a custom Bluetooth low energy (BLE) application profile and a real-time operating system (RTOS) based multitask programming framework are also proposed to facilitate embedded software design for insertable medical devices. Initial ex vivo test results of the s-CAM design have demonstrated technical feasibility of a tetherless insertable laparoscopic camera. Effective imaging is confirmed at as low as 500 lx illumination. Wireless laparoscopic vision is accessible within a distance of more than 10 m. Transabdominal BLE communication is stable at over −52 dBm and shows its potential for wireless control of insertable medical devices. RTOS based sfotware event response is bounded within 1 ms while the CPU usage is at 3∼5%. The device is able to work for 50 min with its onboard power. For the mobility, the robot can translate against the interior abdominal wall to reach full abdomen quadrants, tilt between −180∘ and +180∘, and pan in the range of 0∘∼360∘. The s-CAM has brought robotic laparoscopic imaging one step further toward less invasiveness and more dexterity