Robotic assistant for manipulating a flexible-type laparoscope with intuitive maneuverability

Flexible endoscopy is widely performed in all aspects of laparoscopy, colonoscopy, ureteroscopy, etc. The most signifi-cant advantage is the flexible end effector. It can turn around to see all directions under the supervision of the video ob-tained through the endoscope for expanding the field of view. Nevertheless, the designs of flexible endoscope rely on manual operation of tip flexion, insertion, and rotation. It lacks of intuitive and convenient method of operation. In our previous work, we developed a Robotic Flexible Laparoscope System (RFLS) with compliance effect including velocity control to assist during the surgery. It provides surgeon with head-motion-guided method to control the articulating flexible laparoscope. However, once the surgical robot is to be introduced into the operating room, we need to consider not only the safety but also user-friendly issue. The surgical robot should help surgeon operating the surgery in a con-venient way, and shorten the operation time. Based on user-friendly concept, we develop several functions which aim to make surgeons feel comfortable about operating the robot. Experimental results demonstrate that our updated RFLS is able to keep simultaneously adjusting the system parameters with every user. With the intelligent control algorithm, op-erators spend less time finishing the tasks compared to the system before. The results prove that the proposed approach facilitates a user-friendly system with intelligent control method. With precise and stable features, our RFLS can really help surgeons perform MIS in an intuitive and convenient way. ? 49th International Symposium on Robotics, ISR 2017. All rights reserved.