WO2022262045A1

WO2022262045A1 - Modularized flexible operation arm based on single power source

Info

Publication number: WO2022262045A1
Application number: PCT/CN2021/106634
Authority: WO
Inventors: 陈剑; 崔露航; 杨克己; 王云江
Original assignee: 浙江大学
Priority date: 2021-06-17
Filing date: 2021-07-16
Publication date: 2022-12-22
Also published as: CN113303911A; CN113303911B

Abstract

A modularized flexible operation arm based on a single power source, comprising a plurality of identical sub-sections, each sub-section comprising an external elbow assembly, a transmission assembly and an internal elbow driving assembly. The tail end of the modularized flexible operation arm may be connected to tail end execution mechanisms, such as claw forceps, tweezers and scissors, to form a flexible micro instrument which is mounted at the tail end of a minimally invasive surgical robot system to assist with carrying out minimally invasive surgery. In the operation arm, joints of the operation arm are modularized, and the driving of each joint is independent, which improves the flexibility of the operation arm, and can achieve the flexible sending of a tail end execution mechanism to near a lesion for surgery.

Description

A modular dexterous manipulator based on a single power source

technical field

The invention relates to the field of medical instruments, in particular to microinstruments in minimally invasive surgery robot systems, and in particular to a multi-degree-of-freedom operating arm for minimally invasive surgery.

Background technique

At present, minimally invasive surgery has won the hearts of the people and has become the mainstream solution for many operations, and increasingly relies on dexterously operated micro-instruments to achieve extreme surgical operations. The surgical robot system represented by the da Vinci system has been widely used in minimally invasive surgery. It uses single or multiple millimeter-level incisions on the body surface to establish a surgical channel, which consists of an end effector and an operating arm. The microinstruments enter the surgical site through the channel. The small trauma of minimally invasive surgery requires that the size of the micro-device at the end of the surgical robot system be small enough to meet the requirements of movement space and dexterous operation of several degrees of freedom.

Due to the limited space, most of the micro-devices at the end of the robot system use the rear motor, and the motion of each degree of freedom is pulled by the rope transmission. Multi-degree-of-freedom movement requires a smart transmission arrangement, which requires clever use of limited space to arrange a smart transmission structure, which brings the following problems: 1. Multiple degrees of freedom need to be driven separately by ropes, resulting in an increase in the number of ropes and difficult wiring; 2. 1. The coupling between each degree of freedom is serious, resulting in complex control and low transmission accuracy; 3. The number of degrees of freedom depends heavily on the space required by the transmission mechanism, and the degree of freedom of the entire operating arm is limited.

Contents of the invention

In order to meet the requirements of minimally invasive surgery on the size and flexibility of instruments, solve the problem of difficult transmission, and without losing the degree of freedom of the end effector, the manipulator arm can dexterously reach the vicinity of the lesion and carry out surgery freely. The invention provides a modular dexterous operating arm based on a single power source to improve the dexterity of robot operation in minimally invasive surgery.

The technical solution adopted by the present invention for the deficiencies in the prior art is: a modular smart operating arm based on a single power source, including N identical sub-sections, each sub-section includes an external elbow assembly, a transmission assembly and the three parts of the internal bending pipe drive assembly;

The external elbow assembly includes a fixed outer tube, an outer tube connecting sleeve I, a flexible outer tube, an outer tube connecting sleeve II and a driving nickel-titanium wire;

The fixed outer tube is a non-bendable sleeve structure, and there are two-sided symmetrical chute on the tube wall, and one end of the chute extends to the end face of the fixed outer tube; the outer tube connection sleeve I is a sleeve structure, and its One end is provided with a shaft shoulder to connect with the fixed outer tube, and the other end is connected with the flexible outer tube; the flexible outer tube is a one-way flexible sleeve structure, and the two ends of the shaft shoulder are respectively connected with the outer tube connection sleeve I and the previous section. The outer tube connecting sleeve II of the section is connected, and there are through holes uniformly distributed along the circumference in the wall of the flexible outer tube. Elastic nickel-titanium alloy wire; the outer tube connecting sleeve II is a sleeve structure with a shaft shoulder inside, and its two ends are respectively connected to the fixed outer tube and the flexible outer tube of the next segment;

The transmission assembly includes a threaded pipe, a threaded slip ring and a retaining ring;

The threaded pipe is a hollow sleeve structure with threads on the outside; the threaded slip ring is a hollow collar structure with threads inside, which is connected with the threaded pipe through a thread pair, and the threaded slip ring is provided with The ear, the ear can slide in the chute of the fixed outer tube, the side wall of the threaded slip ring is provided with a bayonet for fixing the driving nickel-titanium wire; the retaining ring is distributed on both sides of the threaded tube end, used to connect the transmission assembly with the fixed outer tube;

The internal bending pipe drive assembly includes a flexible inner pipe, inner pipe connecting sleeve I, support rod, expansion tube, inner pipe connecting sleeve II and temperature-controlled nickel-titanium wire;

The flexible inner tube is composed of a multi-section hinged structure that can swing with each other, and its two ends are respectively connected with the inner tube connecting sleeve I and the inner tube connecting sleeve II of the previous segment; the support rod is a metal rod-shaped structure, The surface is smooth, and the two ends are respectively connected with the inner tube connecting sleeve I and the inner tube connecting sleeve II. The expansion tube is a drum-shaped structure made of elastic material. One end of the expansion tube is fixed on the support rod, and the other end is The free end can expand and contract under the action of the temperature-controlled nickel-titanium wire; the temperature-controlled nickel-titanium wire is a memory alloy controlled by temperature, and is wound in the side wall of the expansion tube in an S-shaped manner.

Further, the two sides of the flexible outer tube are provided with oppositely spaced notches for improving the bending performance of the flexible outer tube.

Further, one end of the driving nickel-titanium wire is fixed to the flexible outer tube, and the other end is fixed to the threaded slip ring. The rotation of the threaded slip ring can drive the stretching of the driving nickel-titanium wire, thereby realizing the bending of the flexible outer tube.

Further, one end of the expansion tube is in interference connection with the support rod, and the other end can slide relative to the support rod.

Further, the expansion tube does not contact the inner wall of the threaded tube when it is not expanded.

Further, when the expansion tube expands, it can contact the inner wall of the threaded tube, and can drive the screwed tube to rotate through friction.

The beneficial effect of the present invention is that: the operating arm proposed by the present invention has modular joints, and the driving of each joint is independent of each other. Since the internal bending tube driving components of each sub-segment are connected, the whole operating arm drives the internal bending tube driving components of all sub-segments to rotate through a motor, and the temperature-controlled nickel-titanium wire of each sub-segment is controlled to shrink and expand. The tube expands and contacts with the threaded tube, and each sub-segment can be connected to the internal bending tube drive assembly in a time-sharing switching manner, and independent bending of each joint can be realized. Since the bending power of each joint comes from the rotation of the transmission component, there is no need to separately set up a power source and a transmission component for each degree of freedom, so the transmission wiring is simple. Since the bending of each joint is time-sharing independent, there is no coupling between the degrees of freedom of each joint, the control is simple, and the transmission precision is high. Since the bending of each joint is realized by the time-sharing switching of the internal bending pipe drive assembly and the transmission assembly, the degree of freedom of the entire operating arm can be flexibly increased or decreased through the number of joint modules. The present invention satisfies the size and dexterity requirements of minimally invasive surgery on the operating arm by ingeniously designing the transmission structure of the operating arm, and can accurately send the end actuator to the Working area, assisting surgeons to complete minimally invasive surgery.

Description of drawings

Figure 1 Appearance renderings;

Figure 2 is an exploded diagram of a sub-segment;

Figure 3 is a power transmission roadmap;

Fig. 4 is a schematic diagram of flexible outer tube bending;

Figure 5 is a diagram of the winding relationship between the expansion tube and the temperature-controlled nickel-titanium wire;

Fig. 6 is a working principle diagram of the expansion tube;

In the figure: 1. Outer pipe connecting sleeve Ⅱ, 2. Fixed outer pipe, 3. Outer pipe connecting sleeve Ⅰ, 4. Flexible outer pipe, 5. Driving nickel-titanium wire, 6. Threaded pipe, 7. Threaded slip ring, 8 .Retaining ring, 9. Inner tube connecting sleeve II, 10. Temperature control nickel-titanium wire, 11. Expansion tube, 12. Support rod, 13. Inner tube connecting sleeve I, 14. Flexible inner tube.

detailed description

The present invention will be described in further detail below in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and specific embodiments.

As shown in Figures 1-6, the present invention provides a modular dexterous manipulator arm based on a single power source, which includes N identical sub-sections, each sub-section includes an external elbow assembly, a transmission assembly and an internal elbow assembly. The tube drive assembly has three parts;

The external elbow assembly includes a fixed outer tube 2, an outer tube connecting sleeve I3, a flexible outer tube 4, an outer tube connecting sleeve II1 and a driving nickel-titanium wire 5;

The fixed outer tube 2 is a non-bendable sleeve structure, and there are two-sided symmetrical chute on the tube wall, and one end of the chute extends to the end face of the fixed outer tube 2; the outer tube connecting sleeve I3 is a sleeve structure , one end of which is provided with a shoulder to connect with the fixed outer tube 2, and the other end is connected with the flexible outer tube 4; Ⅰ3 is connected with the outer tube connecting sleeve II1 of the previous segment, and there are through holes uniformly distributed along the circumference in the wall of the flexible outer tube 4, and the through holes are divided into two groups on the left and right, which are used to install the driving nickel-titanium wire 5; The driving nickel-titanium wire 5 is a nickel-titanium alloy wire with superelasticity; the outer tube connecting sleeve II1 is a sleeve structure with a shaft shoulder inside, and its two ends are respectively connected to the fixed outer tube 2 and the flexible outer tube of the next segment 4;

The transmission assembly includes a threaded pipe 6, a threaded slip ring 7 and a retaining ring 8;

The threaded pipe 6 is a hollow sleeve structure with threads on the outside; the threaded slip ring 7 is a hollow collar structure with threads inside, and is connected with the threaded pipe 6 through a thread pair, and the threaded slip ring 7 Ears are provided on both sides, and the ears can slide in the chute of the fixed outer tube 2, and the side wall of the threaded slip ring 7 is provided with a bayonet for fixing the driving nickel-titanium wire 5; the retaining ring 8 are distributed at both ends of the threaded pipe 6, and are used to connect the transmission assembly with the fixed outer pipe 2;

The internal bending pipe driving assembly includes a flexible inner pipe 14, an inner pipe connecting sleeve I13, a support rod 12, an expansion tube 11, an inner pipe connecting sleeve II9 and a temperature-controlled nickel-titanium wire 10;

The flexible inner tube 14 is composed of a multi-section hinged structure that can swing with each other, and its two ends are respectively connected with the inner tube connecting sleeve I13 and the inner tube connecting sleeve II9 of the previous segment; the support rod 12 is a metal rod structure, the surface is smooth, and the two ends are respectively connected with the inner tube connecting sleeve I13 and the inner tube connecting sleeve II9, the expansion tube 11 is a drum-shaped structure made of elastic material, and one end of the expansion tube 11 is fixed on the support rod 12 The other end is a free end, which can expand and contract under the action of the temperature-controlled nickel-titanium wire 10; the temperature-controlled nickel-titanium wire 10 is a temperature-controlled memory alloy, which is wound around the expansion tube in an S-shaped manner. 11 in the sidewall.

【Example 1】

The end of the manipulator arm is connected to actuators such as claws, tweezers, and scissors to form a micro-instrument installed on the minimally invasive surgical robot system, which can accurately send the end actuator to the working area and assist the surgeon to complete the operation. As shown in Figures 1 and 2, the entire operating arm is composed of N identical sub-segments, and the bending of the entire operating arm is completed by the bending combination of the flexible outer tube 4 of each sub-segment. Since the internal curved pipe driving assemblies of each sub-section are connected end to end, the internal curved pipe driving assemblies of all segments are always rotating under the drive of the same motor. The time-division switching drive of each sub-segment is mainly controlled by the temperature-controlled nickel-titanium wire 10 of each segment. Specifically, the temperature-controlled nickel-titanium wire 10 energized and contracted will pull the expansion tube 11 to expand, so that the expansion tube 11 contacts the inner wall of the threaded tube 6 and drives the threaded tube 6 to rotate, and the rotation of the threaded tube 6 will drive the threaded slip ring 7 to slide, and the screw thread The slip ring 7 pulls and drives the nickel-titanium wire 5 to expand and contract, thereby driving the flexible outer tube 4 to bend and realize the rotation of a single joint. When the temperature control nickel-titanium wire 10 is powered off, the expansion tube 11 will disconnect from the threaded tube 6 under the action of its own elasticity, and the rotation of the threaded tube 6 stops. As shown in Figure 4, the bending process of the flexible outer tube 4 is as follows: the threaded tube 6 rotates, and the threaded slip ring 7 is driven to slide in the chute of the fixed outer tube 2 through the thread pair, thereby driving the nickel-titanium wire 5 to move, The nickel-titanium wire 5 is driven to drive the flexible outer tube 4 to bend.

[Example 2]

As shown in Figure 1, the entire manipulator arm is composed of N identical sub-segments, and the end of the manipulator arm can be connected to simple end effectors such as talons, tweezers, and scissors. The robot system can dexterously change the position and posture of the manipulator arm by reasonably controlling the temperature-controlled nickel-titanium wire 10 of each sub-segment, especially when it is inevitable to bypass some key human tissues, the manipulator arm provided by the present invention It can better realize the dexterous and free delivery of the end effector to the vicinity of the lesion, and assist in the completion of some minimally invasive surgical operations, such as ultrasonic ablation, tissue removal, suture, and drug injection.

[Example 3]

As shown in Figure 2, each sub-section includes three parts: the outer elbow assembly, the transmission assembly and the inner elbow drive assembly. The functions and structures of each sub-section are the same, so the number of sub-sections can , and are connected through the inner tube connecting sleeve II9 and the outer tube connecting sleeve II1 to increase the degree of freedom of the entire operating arm and further improve the flexibility of the entire operating arm.

Those skilled in the art can easily make various changes and modifications according to the written description, drawings and claims provided by the present invention without departing from the idea and scope of the present invention defined by the claims. All modifications and equivalent changes made to the above-mentioned embodiments according to the technical idea and essence of the present invention all belong to the scope of protection defined by the claims of the present invention.

Claims

A modular dexterous manipulator based on a single power source is characterized in that it includes N identical sub-sections, and each sub-section includes three parts: an external bend assembly, a transmission assembly and an internal bend drive assembly;

The external elbow assembly includes a fixed outer tube (2), an outer tube connecting sleeve I (3), a flexible outer tube (4), an outer tube connecting sleeve II (1) and a driving nickel-titanium wire (5);

The fixed outer tube (2) is a non-bendable sleeve structure, and there are two-sided symmetrical chute on the tube wall, and one end of the chute extends to the end face of the fixed outer tube (2); the outer tube connecting sleeve I (3) is a sleeve structure, one end of which is provided with a shoulder to connect with the fixed outer tube (2), and the other end is connected with the flexible outer tube (4); the flexible outer tube (4) is a one-way bendable sleeve structure , the shaft shoulders are set at both ends to connect with the outer tube connecting sleeve I (3) and the outer tube connecting sleeve II (1) of the previous segment respectively, and the flexible outer tube (4) has through holes uniformly distributed along the circumference in the tube wall , the through holes are divided into left and right groups for installing the driving nickel-titanium wire (5); the driving nickel-titanium wire (5) is a nickel-titanium alloy wire with superelasticity; the outer tube connecting sleeve II (1) It is a sleeve structure with a shaft shoulder inside, and its two ends are respectively connected to the fixed outer tube (2) and the flexible outer tube (4) of the next segment;

The transmission assembly includes a threaded pipe (6), a threaded slip ring (7) and a retaining ring (8);

The threaded pipe (6) is a hollow sleeve structure with threads on the outside; the threaded slip ring (7) is a hollow collar structure with threads inside, and is connected with the threaded pipe (6) through a thread pair, Both sides of the threaded slip ring (7) are provided with ears, and the ears can slide in the chute of the fixed outer tube (2), and the side wall of the threaded slip ring (7) is provided with a bayonet for fixing The driving nickel-titanium wire (5); one end of the driving nickel-titanium wire (5) is fixed to the flexible outer tube (4), and the other end is fixed to the threaded slip ring (7), and the rotation of the threaded slip ring (7) drives the drive The expansion and contraction of the nickel-titanium wire (5) realizes the bending of the flexible outer tube (4); the retaining ring (8) is distributed at both ends of the threaded tube (6) for connecting the transmission assembly with the fixed outer tube (2 ) connected;

The internal bending pipe driving assembly includes a flexible inner pipe (14), an inner pipe connecting sleeve I (13), a support rod (12), an expansion tube (11), an inner pipe connecting sleeve II (9) and a temperature-controlled nickel-titanium wire (10);

The flexible inner tube (14) is composed of a multi-section hinged structure that can swing between each other, and its two ends are respectively connected with the inner tube connecting sleeve I (13) and the inner tube connecting sleeve II (9) of the previous segment; The supporting rod (12) is a metal rod-shaped structure with a smooth surface, and its two ends are respectively connected with the inner tube connecting sleeve I (13) and the inner tube connecting sleeve II (9), and the expansion tube (11) is made of elastic material One end of the expansion tube (11) is fixed on the support rod (12), and the other end is a free end, which can expand and contract under the action of the temperature-controlled nickel-titanium wire (10); The nickel-titanium wire (10) is a memory alloy controlled by temperature, and is wound in the side wall of the expansion tube (11) in an S-shaped manner; the expansion tube (11) does not contact the threaded tube when it is not expanded (6) Inner wall contact, can be in contact with the inner wall of the threaded tube (6) during expansion, and can drive the threaded tube (6) to rotate through friction.
A modular dexterous operating arm based on a single power source according to claim 1, characterized in that, the two sides of the flexible outer tube (4) are provided with opposite and spaced slots for improving the flexibility of the outer tube. (4) Bending properties.
The modular dexterous operating arm based on a single power source according to claim 1, characterized in that one end of the expansion tube (11) is in interference connection with the support rod (12), and the other end can be opposite to the support rod (12) SLIDE.