Surgical Instrument Drivetrain Monitoring for Failure Compensation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing surgical instruments face challenges in effectively compensating for drivetrain failures, which can lead to operational inefficiencies and potential harm during surgical procedures.
Innovation Solution
The implementation of a drivetrain mechanism that includes a gear train system and a motor control circuit with sensors and a controller to monitor and adjust the drivetrain's operational parameters, ensuring consistent performance and preventing failures.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a drivetrain mechanism with sensor monitoring is implemented, then reliability is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary detection of drivetrain failures through sensor monitoring before actual failure occurs. The controller continuously monitors operational parameters and identifies potential failures in advance, allowing the system to take corrective action before the drivetrain completely fails, thus improving reliability without requiring overly complex real-time intervention mechanisms
Solution Approach 2:
The drivetrain mechanism incorporates sensor feedback systems that continuously monitor operational parameters such as torque, speed, and positional information. This feedback is processed by the controller to detect anomalies and compensate for drivetrain failures, creating a closed-loop control system that improves reliability through continuous monitoring and adjustment
2Measurement precision
If motor control circuits with multiple sensors are used, then operational precision is improved, but manufacturing cost increases
Solution Approach 1:
The motor control circuit is designed to perform multiple functions using a single integrated controller that handles both motor control and drivetrain failure detection. The same controller processes feedback from multiple sensors for different purposes (motor speed control, torque monitoring, failure detection), reducing the need for separate dedicated circuits and simplifying manufacturing
Solution Approach 2:
The patent combines the motor control functions with the drivetrain monitoring functions into a single integrated control system. Multiple sensors (position sensors, torque sensors) are merged into a unified feedback loop that serves both motor control and failure detection purposes, reducing component count and manufacturing complexity while maintaining measurement precision
Data Source
AI summary
A method for assessing performance of a surgical instrument including one or more drivetrains is disclosed. The method includes sensing via one or more vibration sensors vibrations generated during operation of the one or more drivetrains of the surgical instrument, generating an output signal based on the sensed vibrations, filtering the output signal to generate a filtered signal of the sensed vibrations from the one or more drivetrains, processing the filtered signal to generate a processed signal of the sensed vibrations from the one or more drivetrains, and comparing predetermined threshold values for each of an acceptable status, a marginal status, and a critical status of the surgical instrument to corresponding values of the processed signal.