2007 Volume 9 Issue 1 Pages 7-14
A surgical manipulator system that can answer a wide range of surgical needs is described. We have ever developed a surgical manipulator system HUMAN (Hyper-Utility Mechatronic Assista Nt). It provides minimally invasive neurosurgery in a clinical setting. Besides the obvious restriction of only being able to use this system on the brain, the operative field that this system could treat was circular within a diameter of 1cm. We therefore developed an advanced system based on HUMAN, which we call AMATERAS. This new surgical manipulator system enables precise and minimally invasive surgery on not only the brain but also on such areas as the abdomen. The setting of the manipulator needs to be usable for more than the brain and to have a treatable operative field of3cm minimum. We developed two new mechanisms: a positioning arm that has a five-bar linkage mechanism for pivoting the manipulators and a mechanism that puts some manipulators on a stand for an operating microscope, one that does not hit the surgical bed or the patient's body. With these functions, AMATERAS provides precise and minimally invasive surgery for many area of the body.
