Se-gon Roh

Tension propagation analysis of novel robotized surgical platform for transumbilical single-port access surgery

In this paper, tension propagation analysis of a newly designed multi-DOF robotic platform for single-port access surgery (SPS) is presented. The analysis is based on instantaneous kinematics of the proposed 6-DOF surgical instrument, and provides the decision criteria for estimating the payload of a surgical instrument according to its pose changes and specifications of a driving-wire. Also, the wire-tension and the number of reduction ratio to manage such a payload can be estimated, quantitatively. The analysis begins with derivation of the power transmission efficiency through wire-interfaces from each instrument joint to an actuator. Based on the energy conservation law and the capstan equation, we modeled the degradation of power transmission efficiency due to 1) the reducer called wire-reduction mechanism, 2) bending of proximal instrument joints, and 3) bending of hyper-redundant guide tube. Based on the analysis, the tension of driving-wires was computed according to various manipulation poses and loading conditions. In our experiment, a newly designed surgical instrument successfully managed the external load of 1kgf, which was applied to the end effector of a surgical manipulator.

Flexible sliding frame for gait enhancing mechatronic system (GEMS)

This paper presents a novel flexible sliding thigh frame for a gait enhancing mechatronic system. With its two-layered unique structure, the frame is flexible in certain locations and directions, and stiff at certain other locations, so that it can fît well to the wearers thigh and transmit the assisting torque without joint loading. The paper describes the basic mechanics of this 3D flexible frame and its stiffness characteristics. We implemented the 3D flexible frame on a gait enhancing mechatronic system and conducted experiments. The performance of the proposed mechanism is verified by simulation and experiments.This paper presents a novel flexible sliding thigh frame for a gait enhancing mechatronic system. With its two-layered unique structure, the frame is flexible in certain locations and directions, and stiff at certain other locations, so that it can fît well to the wearers thigh and transmit the assisting torque without joint loading. The paper describes the basic mechanics of this 3D flexible frame and its stiffness characteristics. We implemented the 3D flexible frame on a gait enhancing mechatronic system and conducted experiments. The performance of the proposed mechanism is verified by simulation and experiments.

A self-aligning knee joint for walking assistance devices

This paper presents a novel self-aligning knee mechanism for walking assistance devices for the elderly to provide physical gait assistance. Self-aligning knee joints can assist in flexion/extension motions of the knee joint and compensate the knees transitional movements in the sagittal plane. In order to compensate the center of rotation, which moves with the flexion/extension motion of the human knee joint, a self-aligning knee joint is proposed that adds redundant degrees of freedom (i.e., 2-DoF) to the 1-DoF revolute joint. The key idea of the proposed mechanism is to decouple joint rotations and translations for use in lower-extremity wearable devices. This paper describes the mechanical design of this self-aligning knee mechanism and its implementation on a wearable robot and in preliminary experiments. The performance of the proposed mechanism is verified by simulations and experiments.This paper presents a novel self-aligning knee mechanism for walking assistance devices for the elderly to provide physical gait assistance. Self-aligning knee joints can assist in flexion/extension motions of the knee joint and compensate the knees transitional movements in the sagittal plane. In order to compensate the center of rotation, which moves with the flexion/extension motion of the human knee joint, a self-aligning knee joint is proposed that adds redundant degrees of freedom (i.e., 2-DoF) to the 1-DoF revolute joint. The key idea of the proposed mechanism is to decouple joint rotations and translations for use in lower-extremity wearable devices. This paper describes the mechanical design of this self-aligning knee mechanism and its implementation on a wearable robot and in preliminary experiments. The performance of the proposed mechanism is verified by simulations and experiments.

Development of the SAIT single-port surgical access robot--slave arm based on RCM mechanism.

An innovative single-port surgical robot has recently been developed by the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT). The robot can reach various surgical sites inside the abdominal cavity from a single incision on the body. It has two 7-DOF surgical tools, a 3-DOF endoscope, a flexible hyper-redundant 6-DOF guide tube, and a 6-DOF manipulator. This paper primarily focuses on the manipulator, called a slave arm, which is capable of setting the location of a Remote Center Motion (RCM) point. Because the surgical tools can explore the abdominal area through a small incision point when the RCM point is aligned with the incision area, the RCM mechanism is an integral part of the manipulator for single-port surgery. The mechanical feature, operational principle, control method, and the system architecture of the slave arm are introduced in this paper. In addition, manipulation experiments conducted validate its efficacy.