Medical Support Arm Control for Harmonized Multi-Arm Safety
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing medical support arm systems lack accurate control and safety measures to prevent accidental contact with patients or practitioners during operations, especially when multiple arms are used simultaneously, relying heavily on visual and tactile determination which is inadequate.
Innovation Solution
A medical system with a control device that includes an operation control unit to manage the movable range and space position of multiple medical support arms, ensuring harmonized operation by processing information about the movable range and working point of each arm to prevent collisions and ensure safety.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If manual manipulation of medical support arm is used, then ease of operation is improved, but safety deteriorates due to risk of erroneous operation and accidental contact
Solution Approach 1:
The control device continuously monitors the movable range of multiple medical support arms and provides feedback control to prevent erroneous operations. The operation control unit receives information about arm positions and movable ranges, processes this data, and adjusts operations to maintain safety while preserving manual controllability.
Solution Approach 2:
An operation control unit acts as an intermediary between the manipulator and the medical support arms. This intermediary processes operation information, checks against movable range constraints, and mediates the actual arm movements to prevent accidental contact while maintaining intuitive control.
2Productivity
If multiple medical support arms are used simultaneously, then productivity is improved, but device complexity increases making harmonized operation difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The operation control unit serves multiple functions: it manages movable range information for multiple arms, processes space position data, coordinates harmonized operations, and prevents collisions. This single multi-functional unit simplifies the overall control architecture despite managing multiple complex arms.
Solution Approach 2:
The control device merges the control of multiple medical support arms into a unified system. By combining movable range information and space position data from all arms and processing them through a single operation control unit, the system achieves harmonized operation without requiring separate complex control systems for each arm.
3Ease of operation
If visual and tactile determination is used for operation safety, then ease of operation is maintained, but measurement precision deteriorates making accurate collision prevention difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The system replaces manual visual and tactile determination with automated electronic measurement and control. Sensors and control devices precisely measure the space positions and movable ranges of medical support arms, providing accurate collision prevention data without requiring manipulator sensory judgment.
Solution Approach 2:
The operation control unit acts as an intermediary that receives precise position measurements from sensors, processes this data against movable range constraints, and makes accurate determination about potential collisions, replacing the imprecise human sensory judgment while maintaining manual operation capability.
Data Source
AI summary
A harmonized operation of a plurality of medical support arms is controlled more accurately. There is provided a medical system including an operation control unit configured to control, on the basis of information regarding a movable range (300a) of a first medical support arm (10a) being a control target, information regarding the movable range (300b) of a second medical support arm (10b) to be used together with the first medical support arm (10a), and a space position of a working point (Pa) in the first medical support arm (10a), an operation of the working point (Pa).