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An Automated Extracorporeal Knot-tying System Using Two Concentric Tube Robotic Arms for Deployment through a 3-mm Port

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Abstract

Ligation is a process of closing or blocking a blood vessel or duct intracorporeally to obstruct the flow of fluid before cutting it. Ligation through knot tying using a suture is a quite complex procedure and needs the use of dexterous tools to properly secure the knot. In case of natural orifice transluminal endoscopic surgery (NOTES) and single-incision laparoscopic surgery (SILS), ligation through suture knot tying is even more difficult because of the small diameters of the accessible ports. In this study, a robotic solution for suture ligation has been proposed for possible use in SILS and NOTES. The developed device can operate through a 3-mm laparoscopic port and has a workspace of 35 × 10x5 mm (length × width x height) around the duct. The device uses a pre-tied Roeder’s knot, which is pushed down onto the duct by the operation of two concentric tube-based manipulator arms. Preliminary evaluation validates that the device can work around a phantom duct with 7 mm outer diameter without any collisions. The operation takes an average of 128.10 s with a standard deviation of 15.72 s. The knot tied is secure enough to abduct the fluid flow inside the duct, which is validated by testing on a water-filled rubber tube. The proposed device assists surgeons for suture ligation in SILS and NOTES without the requirement for any other tools and with a possibility of decreasing the operating time.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Chonnam National University, Gwangju, 61186, Korea

    Muhammad Umar Farooq

  2. School of Mechanical Engineering, Chonnam National University, Gwangju, 61186, Korea

    Seong Young Ko

Authors
  1. Muhammad Umar Farooq
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  2. Seong Young Ko
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Correspondence to Seong Young Ko.

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Publisher’s Note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Recommended by Associate Editor Sukho Park under the direction of Editor Doo Yong Lee. This work was supported by the Industrial Technology Innovation Program (No. 10080609) funded by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE, Korea).

Muhammad Umar Farooq received his B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Pakistan Institute of Engineering and Applied Sciences, (PIEAS Islamabad) in 2015. He is currently pursuing a doctoral degree from Chonnam National University, Korea after graduating from Master’s in Mechanical Engineering in 2017 from the same institute. His research interests include surgical robots, medical instruments and concentric tube robots.

Seong Young Ko received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees from the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon, Korea, in 2000, 2002, and 2008, respectively. From 2009 to 2011, he was a research associate in the Mechatronics-In-Medicine Laboratory, the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Imperial College London, UK. From October 2011, he was an assistant professor and is now an associate professor in the School of Mechanical Engineering, Chonnam National University, Gwangju, Korea. His research interests include medical robotics, human-robot interaction and intelligent control.

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Farooq, M.U., Ko, S.Y. An Automated Extracorporeal Knot-tying System Using Two Concentric Tube Robotic Arms for Deployment through a 3-mm Port. Int. J. Control Autom. Syst. 18, 1–9 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12555-018-0424-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12555-018-0424-z

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