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Smaller, smarter, softer robotic arm for endoscopic surgery
Flexible endoscopes can snake through narrow passages to treat difficult to reach areas of the body. However, once they arrive at their target, these devices rely on rigid surgical tools to manipulate or remove tissue. These tools offer surgeons reduced dexterity and sensing, limiting the current therapeutic capabilities of the endoscope.
Now, researchers from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University have developed a hybrid rigid-soft robotic arm for endoscopes with integrated sensing, flexibility, and multiple degrees of freedom. This arm — built using a manufacturing paradigm based on pop-up fabrication and soft lithography — lies flat on an endoscope until it arrives at the desired spot, then pops up to assist in surgical procedures
Soft robots are so promising for surgical applications because they can match the stiffness of the body, meaning they won’t accidentally puncture or tear tissue. However, at small scales, soft materials cannot generate enough force to perform surgical tasks.Industrial Robotic Arm
“At the millimeter scale, a soft device becomes so soft that it can’t damage tissue but it also can’t manipulate the tissue in any meaningful way,” said Tommaso Ranzani, a postdoctoral fellow at SEAS and the Wyss Institute and coauthor of the paper. “That limits the application of soft microsystems for performing therapy. The question is, how can we develop soft robots that are still able to generate the necessary forces without compromising safety.”
Inspired by biology, the team developed a hybrid model that used a rigid skeleton surrounded by soft materials. The manufacturing method drew on previous work in origami-inspired, pop-up fabrication, developed by Robert Wood, the Charles River Professor of Engineering and Applied Sciences.
Wood coauthored the paper and is a Core Faculty Member of the Wyss Institute.
Previous pop-up manufacturing techniques — such as those used with the Robobees — rely on actuation methods that require high voltages or temperatures to operate, something that wouldn’t be safe in a surgical tool directly manipulating biological tissues and organs.
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