Endoscopic Articulation Cable Slack Management via Arcuate Track
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Solution Overview
Problem
Endoscopic articulation cables often become disengaged from rotatable members, leading to issues with tension and slack management, which can result in kinking, binding, or entanglement, limiting the device's ability to accurately control movement in multiple directions.
Innovation Solution
The use of clamps and an arcuate track within a rotatable member to securely couple and manage articulation cables, allowing for controlled slack and tension, preventing entanglement and stress points during movement.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If articulation cables are allowed to move freely with rotatable members, then the device can achieve multi-directional articulation movement, but the cables become disengaged, kinked, or entangled
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an intermediary mechanism (the rotatable member with arcuate track and clamp assembly) between the cable and the articulation system. This intermediary guides the cable through a controlled path, allowing the cable to move with the articulation while preventing disengagement, kinking, and entanglement through the structured arcuate track geometry.
Solution Approach 2:
The rotatable member with its arcuate track provides a dynamic guide path that adapts to the cable's movement during articulation. As the articulation system moves in multiple directions, the arcuate track rotates and repositions the cable accordingly, maintaining proper cable tension and orientation while enabling full range of motion.
2Force
If cables are tightly coupled to rotatable members, then cable tension is maintained, but the cables cannot accommodate movement and become bound
Solution Approach 1:
The arcuate track is designed to rotate and change position dynamically as the articulation system moves. This dynamic geometry allows the cable to maintain tension through the curved path while accommodating the full range of articulation movements, preventing binding and entanglement.
Solution Approach 2:
The arcuate track introduces a rotational dimension to the cable guidance system. Instead of linear movement only, the cable is guided through a curved path that adds rotational freedom, allowing the cable to accommodate multi-directional articulation while maintaining proper tension through the three-dimensional geometry of the track.
Data Source
AI summary
An articulating medical device including handle and an articulating elongate member extending from the handle. The handle is a housing which includes at least one rotatable member, defining an arcuate track extending for a partial rotation about a center axis of rotation, at least one clamp captured, translatable, and rotatable within the arcuate track, and at least one articulation cable, fastened to the at least one clamp and extending outward from the handle, toward the articulating elongate member, including extending, when under tension, along a first lateral periphery of the at least one rotatable member and within a channel formed in the rotatable member. The at least one clamp translates within the arcuate track to accommodate slack in the at least one articulation cable when the at least one articulation cable is not under tension.