Design of a compact laparoscope manipulator with releasable hybrid control

Twenty years ago, the emergence of endoscopic technology opened up the way to minimal access surgery, which strongly reduced operative traumatisms and significantly improved the patient’s comfort. Nowadays, manipulation of the scope tends to be entrusted to a robot controlled by the surgeon, so as to allow the latter to work without the need of an assistant and to guarantee the stability of the image. However, current robots remain quite expensive and suffer from many limitations : bulk, ergonomics, set-up time, restricted control etc. The purpose of this research is to develop a new compact manipulator which is quick to install, equipped with a hybrid control including optic tracking so at to maintain the field of vision, and allowing a manual manipulation of the laparoscope to permit a short general exploration.