Redundant and Reconfigurable Mechanisms for Medical Devices

Organizer:

Amine Laribi, University of Poitiers, France. Carl Nelson, University of Nebraska, USA.

Abstract: Safety is the primary criterion in medical robotics. While this aspect in industrial robotics can be simply addressed by using marking and fences in factories, medical robots need to directly interact with patients' anatomy, surgeons and medical personnel. One way to increase the safety of a medical robot is by using specific mechanical architectures for their design. In addition, a well-optimized mechanism has the potential to improve the kinematics of the robot and reduce the fabrication cost. For this reason, increasing research interest is being given toward the development of reconfigurable and redundant mechanisms for medical devices. These developments have led to new intelligent-mechanical systems which have the ability to modify their mobility, configurations, kinematics, and dynamic performance that enable the medical device to operate more reliably and with higher performance.