Surgical Arm Interlocking Links Tensioning
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Solution Overview
Problem
Invasive surgical procedures cause significant trauma and scarring, and minimally invasive techniques often require complex instruments to access surgical sites without damaging vital tissues, leading to challenges in workspace expansion and recovery time.
Innovation Solution
A surgical assembly featuring interlocking links and a tensioning mechanism that supports surgical instruments, allowing for adjustable positioning and orientation without requiring multiple knob/button devices, facilitating minimally invasive procedures with reduced tissue disruption.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Object-affected harmful factors
If minimally invasive surgical techniques are used to access surgical sites without damaging vital tissues, then tissue trauma is reduced, but workspace expansion becomes challenging
Solution Approach 1:
The arm is divided into multiple interlocking links that can independently articulate and position themselves. This segmentation allows the arm to navigate through confined spaces while maintaining the ability to expand workspace at the distal end, resolving the contradiction between minimal tissue trauma and adequate surgical workspace.
Solution Approach 2:
The articulated arm structure introduces multiple degrees of freedom in three-dimensional space, allowing surgical instruments to reach distant or hard-to-access surgical sites through a small incision. This dimensional approach enables workspace expansion without requiring larger incisions, thus maintaining minimal tissue trauma while providing adequate surgical access.
2Area of stationary object
If complex instruments are used to expand workspace in minimally invasive procedures, then surgical access is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The arm employs dynamic articulation between links that can be selectively fixed or moved. This dynamic structure allows the arm to adapt its configuration during surgery, providing workspace expansion when needed while maintaining a relatively simple overall device structure that does not require multiple independent control mechanisms.
Solution Approach 2:
The interlocking links with mating surfaces and tension members create a self-stabilizing structure. Once positioned, the links automatically lock together through their interlocking geometry, eliminating the need for complex external locking mechanisms or multiple knobs/buttons, thus reducing device complexity while maintaining workspace expansion capability.
3Measurement precision
If multiple knobs or buttons are used to adjust arm positioning, then positioning precision is improved, but ease of operation deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
Multiple positioning functions are merged into a single integrated tensioning mechanism. By combining the adjustment of multiple links into one tension member system, the invention maintains positioning precision through the interlocking geometry of the links while dramatically simplifying operation to require only a single tensioning action rather than multiple independent controls.
Solution Approach 2:
The tension member serves multiple functions simultaneously: it tensions the cable, adjusts the position of multiple links, and locks the arm in position. This multi-functional design achieves precise positioning without requiring separate knobs or buttons for each adjustment, thereby improving ease of operation while maintaining positioning precision.
Data Source
AI summary
A surgical assembly includes a tensioner having a first end and a second end. A tension member extends from the first end of the tensioner. A mounting member is connected to the second end of the tensioner. An arm extends from the first end of the tensioner and includes a series of relatively moveable links that define an axial bore configured for disposal of the tension member. Each link defines a first mating surface and a second mating surface disposed in a configuration such that tensioning of the tension member interlocks the first mating surface with the second mating surface of an adjacent link in the series to selectively fix the links in a selected orientation.