Design and implementation of the robotic end effector for minimally invasive celiac surgery

In order to improve the safety of minimally invasive celiac surgery, a new robotic end effector is designed, which is used to hold the surgical instruments. According to the characteristics and technical requirements of minimally invasive celiac surgery, a "swing-point" mechanism is designed with the principle of axis-drive and parallel linkage motion, and the mechanical structure design of the end effector is introduced in detail. Kinematics solution formulas of the joints are presented by using D-H and linear algebra methods, the hardware structure and software system of the control system are studied, and the performance of the end effector is tested with prototype experiments. Experiments show that the designed end effector has good "swing-point" performance, accomplishes surgical programming successfully and meets the requirements of minimally invasive celiac surgery.