Oblique Drive Arrangement for Endoscopic Shaft Instruments
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Solution Overview
Problem
The existing drive arrangements for endoscopic shank instruments are bulky, limiting their application in restricted spaces and making it difficult to introduce instruments into the body at a shallow angle, especially when multiple instruments need to be used simultaneously in minimal-invasive surgeries.
Innovation Solution
The drive arrangement features obliquely aligned housing shafts connected to parallel drive shafts, allowing for a compact instrument housing design that can taper into a tip, enabling multiple instruments to be used in close proximity and facilitating shallow angle insertion, with optional use of universal joints for efficient movement transmission and spring elements for secure positioning.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If actuation rollers are arranged in a common plane normal to their rotation axis in the instrument housing, then the instrument head can be controlled with multiple degrees of freedom, but the instrument housing becomes relatively large
Solution Approach 1:
The patent changes the spatial arrangement of actuation rollers from a common plane perpendicular to rotation axes to parallel planes with rotation axes extending in the longitudinal direction of the shank. This dimensional reconfiguration allows multiple actuation rollers to be arranged along the longitudinal axis without increasing the transverse footprint of the instrument housing, thus maintaining multi-degree-of-freedom control while reducing housing size.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent arranges actuation rollers in nested or stacked configurations where multiple rollers are positioned along the longitudinal axis of the shank rather than spread out in a transverse plane. This nesting approach allows the control mechanisms for multiple degrees of freedom to be compacted into a smaller transverse area while maintaining the necessary rotational control capabilities.
2Adaptability or versatility
If the instrument housing is made large to accommodate multiple actuation rollers, then control of instrument head with multiple degrees of freedom is achieved, but it becomes difficult to introduce the shank into the body at a shallow angle
Solution Approach 1:
By reorienting the rotation axes of actuation rollers to extend in the longitudinal direction of the shank and arranging rollers in parallel planes along this axis, the patent creates a compact transverse profile. This allows the instrument to be introduced at shallow angles while maintaining the capability to control the instrument head with multiple degrees of freedom through the longitudinally arranged actuation mechanism.
3Adaptability or versatility
If multiple shank instruments are used simultaneously in restricted space, then complex surgical procedures can be performed, but the large instrument housing prevents close positioning of multiple instruments
Solution Approach 1:
The patent arranges actuation rollers along the longitudinal axis of the shank rather than in a transverse plane, creating a compact instrument housing with reduced transverse dimensions. This allows multiple shank instruments to be positioned close together or bundled in a sheath while maintaining the capability to perform complex surgical procedures through coordinated control of multiple instruments with multiple degrees of freedom.
Data Source
AI summary
A drive arrangement for an endoscopic shaft instrument, preferably an instrument which is intended for use in connection with a surgical robot, has a drive arrangement that has an instrument housing (12) on a proximal shaft end. At least one housing shaft (22) is mounted in the instrument housing (12). The shaft is drivingly connected to a traction device which is provided for controlling an instrument head on a distal shaft end. Furthermore, the drive arrangement has a drive unit having at least one drive shaft. The housing shaft (22) can be drivingly connected to said drive shaft. The at least one housing shaft (22) is oriented at an angle to the drive shaft (30) and the drive shaft can be drivingly connected thereto.