Konzeption und Entwicklung eines Transport- und Dockingsystem für Medizinroboter im Operationssaal

Abstract

The Robotics and Mechatronics Center (RMC) of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) has developed MIRO, a new lightweight robot for surgery. The existing prototypes are optimized for minimal invasive surgery, but since flexibility was one of the central aims during the design process they can easily be adapted to a wide range of different medical procedures by using specialized instruments. In this work, a transportation and docking-system for up to four MIRO robots was developed. It should be able to position the robot arms based on a preoperative planning correctly at the side rails of the operating table. At the same time it should offer the possibility to serve as stand for one to four robots during surgery. First of all the requirements for such a system were collected from different sources: the organization of a typical operating room, the clinical workflow, the Medical Devices Act (MPG) and ergonomics. The received results were organized in a requirement list. Subsequently the central functions and structures of the system were identified based on this list. As fulfilling all the requirements in one system would have resulted in a very high complexity and size, it was decided to develop two independent systems: The support-system Maia, which can serve as base for the MIROs during the operation, and the transport- and docking-system Revolver, from which the robot arms can be transferred to the side rails of the operating table. Since it does not have to keep the robots in position during the operation, Revolver can be designed significantly slighter and lighter than Maia. Adjacently the solution principles for the most important functions of these two systems were determined. Wherever it was possible and reasonable, commercially available solutions were used. Afterwards the different modules of Maia and Revolver were constructed, assembled and optimized in PRO/ENGINEER. All necessary data for the building of the two systems (drawings, list of parts etc.) was created and composed. Finally the fulfilling of the requirements list was checked and possible improvements for both systems were investigated and assessed.