Autoclavable Endoscope Keypad With Magnetic Haptic Press Detection
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional keypads in medical environments, particularly for endoscopes, face challenges in ensuring reliable functionality and cleanliness, as well as providing immediate feedback to users, which is crucial in sterile settings.
Innovation Solution
A keypad design featuring logic circuitry, an elastic watertight cover with an undercut pocket, and keys with actuator and sensor sections, utilizing a magnet and snap disk mechanism for reliable key press detection and haptic feedback, allowing for effective manufacturing without adhesives and ensuring autoclavability.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If conventional keypads are used in medical environments, then manufacturing is simple, but reliability and cleanliness are compromised due to contamination risk and lack of immediate feedback
Solution Approach 1:
The keypad is divided into separate actuator and sensor sections with a support structure between them. This segmentation allows independent optimization of each section for reliability while maintaining manufacturing feasibility through modular assembly.
Solution Approach 2:
A support structure acts as an intermediary between the actuator and sensor sections, enabling physical separation while maintaining functional connection. This intermediary allows the keypad to achieve high reliability through separation while keeping manufacturing complexity manageable.
2Ease of manufacture
If adhesive bonding is used to attach keys, then manufacturing is simplified, but autoclavability and cleanliness are compromised
Solution Approach 1:
Adhesive bonding is replaced with a mechanical magnetic coupling system. The magnet in the actuator section magnetically couples with the snap disk in the sensor section, eliminating the need for adhesives and enabling autoclavability while maintaining easy assembly.
Solution Approach 2:
The keypad utilizes composite material properties, combining magnetic materials in the actuator section with corresponding magnetic response materials in the sensor section. This composite approach enables adhesive-free assembly that withstands autoclaving while maintaining manufacturing simplicity.
3Ease of operation
If keys provide immediate haptic feedback, then user control reliability is improved, but manufacturing complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system changes physical parameters to achieve haptic feedback, utilizing magnetic field strength variations and mechanical snap disk displacement. These parameter changes provide immediate user feedback while keeping the mechanism relatively simple through natural physical phenomena.
Solution Approach 2:
The snap disk mechanism provides immediate haptic feedback to the user through tactile sensation during key actuation. This feedback loop enhances ease of operation while maintaining manufacturing simplicity by utilizing straightforward mechanical principles.
4Manufacturing precision
If magnet is held with adhesives, then positioning precision is improved, but autoclavability and cleanliness are compromised
Solution Approach 1:
Adhesive-based magnet positioning is replaced with a mechanical retention system using an undercut pocket structure. This substitution maintains manufacturing precision through geometric constraints while improving autoclavability and simplifying the assembly process by eliminating adhesive application steps.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The keypad provides reliable and immediate feedback to users, ensuring proper instrument response while maintaining manufacturing simplicity and ensuring cleanliness, thus addressing the challenges of conventional keypads in medical environments.
Implementation Method 1
The sensor section includes a sensor adapted to detect a strength of a magnetic field of the magnet at the sensor
Implementation Method 2
The actuator section is adapted to, when the key is pressed by a user, press against the snap disk and transform the snap disk from a released state into a loaded state
Data Source
AI summary
A keypad includes a support, a snap disk on a first side of the support transformable from a released state to a loaded state, a cover forming a seal over the first side, a pocket in the cover, a magnet and a plunger disposed in the pocket, the plunger adapted to engage and transform the snap disk to the loaded state, a magnetic field sensor on a second side of the support, the second side opposite the first side and logic circuitry adapted to obtain a value of a strength of a magnetic field from the sensor, compare the value against a predetermined threshold value that corresponds at least approximately to the strength of a magnetic field, and when the plunger has transformed the snap disk to the loaded state and the value reaches or exceeds the threshold value, output a signal indicating that a key press occurred.