Grip strength with tactile feedback for robotic surgery
AssigneeIntuitive Surgical Operations, Inc.
InventorsWilliam C. Nowlin, Gary S. Guthart, Robert G. Younge, Thomas G. Cooper, Craig Gerbi, Stephen J. Blumenkranz, Dean F. Hoornaert
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Surgical robots and other telepresence systems have enhanced grip actuation for manipulating tissues and objects with small sizes. A master/slave system is used in which an error signal or gain is artificially altered when grip members are near a closed configuration.
Claims8
In a medical robotic system, a handle coupled to first and second end effector elements through a processor so as to manipulate a separation between the first and second end effector elements through operator manipulation of the handle, the handle comprising:
- first and second grip elements coupled together at conjoining ends of the first and second grip elements and defining a separation between free ends of the first and second grip elements;
- and
- at least one spring coupled to at least one of the first and second grip elements, wherein the at least one spring exhibits a first spring constant while the separation exceeds a separation transition point that corresponds to the free end of the first end effector element making contact with the free end of the second end effector element and exhibits a second spring constant greater than the first spring constant when the separation is less than the separation transition point.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.