Ceramic-Sheathed Optic Light Guide for Compact Endoscope Routing
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing optic light guides occupy a large amount of installation space and weight, making it difficult to design endoscopes with narrow shafts and increasing the burden on users, while non-perpendicular alignments often require additional space and weight with mirrors.
Innovation Solution
Using a ceramic sheath for the optic light guide that allows for a non-straight design with changes in direction, minimizing installation space and weight, and incorporating adhesive-filled interspaces for stabilization.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Strength
If traditional materials (metal or plastic) are used for the sheath, then the optic light guide achieves sufficient mechanical strength and stability, but the installation space and weight increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent changes the material parameter from traditional metal or plastic to ceramic, which has fundamentally different properties: higher specific strength, lower density, and superior thermal stability. This material substitution resolves the contradiction by providing mechanical stability with reduced volume and weight.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent employs ceramic as a composite material solution that combines multiple desirable properties: structural integrity, electrical insulation, thermal stability, and compactness. The ceramic sheath integrates these functions that would otherwise require separate components, reducing overall installation space.
2Adaptability or versatility
If the optic light guide is designed with a non-straight course to redirect light around obstacles, then alignment flexibility improves, but additional space and weight are required for mirrors and redirection components
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a curved or non-straight sheath geometry that allows the optic light guide to bend and redirect light paths around obstacles within the endoscope shaft. This curved design eliminates the need for separate mirrors or redirection components, achieving adaptability without increasing installation space.
Solution Approach 2:
The sheath structure serves multiple functions simultaneously: mechanical protection, light guidance through curved path, and spatial positioning. This multi-functionality integrates what would otherwise require separate components (mirrors, mounts, alignment mechanisms), resolving the contradiction between flexibility and space consumption.
3Strength
If the sheath material is electrically conductive (such as metal), then mechanical strength is achieved, but additional insulation components are required increasing installation space
Solution Approach 1:
The ceramic sheath simultaneously provides mechanical strength, electrical insulation, and structural support. This multi-functionality eliminates the need for separate insulation layers or protective coatings that would be required with conductive materials, reducing device complexity and installation space.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes the electrical conductivity parameter of the sheath material from conductive (metal) to insulating (ceramic), while maintaining or improving mechanical strength. This parameter change eliminates the need for additional insulation components.
4Length of moving object
If the endoscope shaft diameter is reduced to fit narrow cavities, then patient comfort and procedural ease improve, but the optic light guide occupies a larger proportion of the available space
Solution Approach 1:
The patent changes the density and specific volume parameters by using ceramic material, which provides equivalent mechanical performance with lower density. This allows the optic light guide to occupy less volume within the constrained shaft diameter, enabling narrower endoscope designs.
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 ceramic sheath enables a compact, robust optic light guide that redirects light around obstacles without increasing the endoscope's diameter, reducing weight, and providing insulation without additional components.
Implementation Method 1
ceramic is an electrically non-conductive material, which means that the sheath provides additional insulation to electronic components
Implementation Method 2
They are used in endoscopes for the purpose of guiding light of a light source from a proximal end to a distal end of the endoscope shaft
Implementation Method 3
ceramic sheaths have a surface which is relatively smooth compared with other materials (such as metal) and which facilitates the insertion of single fibres as a bundle
Data Source
AI summary
An optic light guide includes a plurality of light-guiding single fibres which are combined into a bundle and at least one sheath which encloses at least one section of an outer circumference of the bundle, the at least one sheath being made of ceramic. The optic light guide may be arranged in an area of a tip of an endoscope.