UC San Diego

In recent decades, advances in minimally invasive surgery has led to shorter patient recovery times, less pain, and less injury to healthy tissue. The introduction of robotic assisted minimally invasive surgical systems promises to improve surgeon precision and performance to further improve positive outcomes. The idea of dexterous operation within a lumen of the body for medical observation, biopsy, and therapeutics delivery can be enabled, in particular, by continuum robots. Capable of replicating locomotion, dexterity, and flexibility found in biology, from tentacles, vines, and snakes, continuum robots offer unique characteristics over rigid-link robots. These robots have shown clinical promise by entering the body through natural orifices and maneuvering inside complex anatomical structures to complete tasks. Although the technology is promising, the cost and bulky size of current systems ultimately limits broader access to current technology by patients and clinicians.

This thesis presents a novel, handheld, tendon-driven continuum robot catheter for augmentation of an endoscope. By using this steerable robotic catheter inside the endoscope’s working channel, the robot offers greater dexterity and instrument maneuverability within an anatomical workspace. The performance of the presented robotic catheter has been validated via benchtop experiments and multiple ex vivo experiments. Regular feedback from clinical collaborators drove a user-oriented design that is lightweight, easy to use, and does not significantly interfere with the familiarity clinicians have with endoscopes. In this work, the majority of volunteer clinicians were otolaryngologists, but the technology is applicable to other medical specialties and not limited to bronchoscopy endoscopes.