Surgical instrument

A method of controlling a tool of a surgical instrument that is inserted in a patient for carrying out a surgical procedure and is controlled remotely by way of an electronic controller from an input device at a user interface, said method comprising the steps of:

• setting the input device at an initial reference configuration and under electronic controller control;
• setting the surgical instrument in the patient at an initial predefined reference configuration without electronic controller control;
• calculating the current absolute position of the input device;
• determining the desired location of the tool by a kinematic computation that accounts for at least the initial reference configuration of the input device and the current absolute position of the input device;
• and
• moving the surgical instrument to the desired position so that the location of the tool corresponds to that of the input device.

A method of controlling a medical implement remotely from an input device that is controlled by an operator, said method comprising the steps of:

• positioning the medical implement at an initial start position at an operative site for the purpose of facilitating a medical procedure;
• establishing a fixed position reference coordinate representative of the initial start position of said medical implement based upon a base point of the implement and an active point of the implement being in an initial known relative dimensional configuration,
• positioning the input device at an initial start position;
• establishing a fixed position reference coordinate;
• calculating the current position of the input device as it is controlled;
• determining the desired position of the medical implement based upon;
• the current position of the input device,
• the fixed position reference coordinate of the input device, and
• the fixed position reference coordinate of the medical implement, and
• moving the medical implement to the desired position so that the position of the medical implement corresponds to that of the input device.

A method of controlling a surgical instrument remotely from an input device and by way of an electronic controller, said method comprising the steps of:

• inserting the surgical instrument through an incision in the patient so as to dispose the distal end of the instrument at an initial start position;
• establishing a fixed position reference coordinate system corresponding to a fixed predefined configuration of the surgical instrument at the initial start position of said surgical instrument;
• positioning the input device at an initial start position;
• establishing a fixed position reference coordinate system representative of the initial start position of said input device;
• calculating the current absolute position of the input device as it is controlled;
• determining the desired position of the surgical instrument based upon the current absolute position of the input device, and the fixed position reference coordinate system for the respective surgical instrument and input device;
• and
• moving the surgical instrument to the desired position so that the position of the surgical instrument corresponds to that of the input device.

A method of controlling a medical implement remotely from an input device and by way of an electronic controller, said method comprising the steps of:

• inserting the medical implement through an incision in a patient so as to dispose the medical implement in a pre-select initial configuration;
• assigning a fixed initial reference coordinate to a work element of the medical implement based upon a known dimension between said work element and a base of the medical implement and said preselected initial configuration;
• positioning the input device at an initial start position;
• establishing a fixed initial reference coordinate representative of the initial start position of die input device;
• calculating the current position of the input device as it is controlled;
• determining the desired position of the medical implement based upon at least the current position of the input device;
• and
• moving the medical implement so that the position thereof corresponds to that of the input device.