Snake-like surgical forceps for robot-assisted minimally invasive surgery.

Background: Surgical instruments greatly impact the performance of robot-assisted minimally invasive surgery (RMIS) because they operate on tissues.

Methods: A snake-like surgical instrument, designed with 4 degrees of freedom (DOFs), is proposed for RMIS. The DOFs are as follows: opening and closing motions of the forceps, rotation of the forceps and bi-directional bending of the instrument. The performance of the instrument was evaluated using a prototype in vitro.

Results: All DOFs of the instrument were experimentally evaluated and proven sufficient for RMIS. In vitro testing showed that the operations of the proposed model were powerful and steady.

Conclusions: The position and posture of the surgical instrument could be adjusted in the body of the patient by its bending and rotational movements. The proposed model could therefore work as a competent assistant in multi-port RMIS and allow surgeons to perform better.