Catheterization Robot Drive Component Sealing Ring
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Solution Overview
Problem
Catheterization robots face hygiene and sterility issues due to drive components leaving one track uncovered, leading to potential pollution and efficiency problems, and existing solutions involving complex sterile cloths are impractical for frequent movements.
Innovation Solution
A catheterization robot with a drive component surrounded by a deformable sealing ring and a transversely movable sealing belt that follows the drive component's horizontal displacement, ensuring continuous coverage of tracks during movement between them, maintaining sterility and allowing for flexible movements like rotation.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Device complexity
If a drive component is made common to multiple tracks to reduce device complexity, then the drive component can travel between tracks to serve multiple functions, but the track becomes uncovered and vulnerable to pollution when the drive component leaves it
Solution Approach 1:
A sealing ring made of flexible material is placed around the drive component, and a sealing belt extends from the ring to cover the track. The flexible sealing elements can deform and move with the drive component while maintaining continuous coverage of the track, preventing pollution during transitions between tracks.
2Reliability
If sterility cloths are used to cover tracks to maintain sterility, then hygiene and sterility are properly maintained, but the system becomes complex and impractical for frequent movements
Solution Approach 1:
The sealing system is designed to be dynamic rather than static. The sealing belt and sealing ring can move and deform in real-time to follow the drive component's movements between tracks, providing continuous sterility protection without requiring complex reconfiguration or multiple separate covering components.
3Reliability
If a sealing ring is added around the drive component to maintain track coverage, then sterility is maintained during movement, but the device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The sealing ring is integrated directly with the drive component, and the sealing belt is connected to the sealing ring, creating a unified sealing system. This merging of components reduces the number of separate parts and simplifies the overall structure while maintaining continuous track coverage during drive component movement.
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 solution effectively maintains sterility and operational efficiency by ensuring continuous coverage of tracks during drive component movement, facilitating easy transitions and accommodating various types of catheterization robots, even complex ones, without increasing the robot's size or complexity.
Implementation Method 1
a sealing ring that is deformable so as to allow a relative, horizontal longitudinal displacement between said drive component and the periphery of said ring
Data Source
AI summary
Disclosed is a catheterization robot including: several tracks for longitudinal horizontal rectilinear translational movement of several flexible elongate medical elements, the tracks being parallel to each other; a drive component for driving a flexible elongate medical device in rectilinear translation, the drive component being common to the tracks, transversely horizontally movable, and surrounded by a sealing ring which is deformable and integrally secured to the drive component; a sealing belt which is transversely horizontally movable, is integrally secured to the periphery of the sealing ring, and of which two portions extend the sealing ring transversely horizontally, respectively on the two sides, sufficiently to ensure that all of the tracks remain continuously covered.