Development of Pneumatically-Driven Hand with a Wrist Joint for Laparoscopic Surgery

Abstract

Laparoscopic surgery has been widely conducted for reduction of patient’s burden. To ensure necessary vision and space under laparoscopic surgical environment, a hand-like device which can grasp organs are needed. In this paper, we describe the pneumatic-driven three-fingered hand type device with a wrist joint we developed. Each finger consists of two machined springs as flexible joint. Super-elastic alloy bands are implemented in the middle of the joints of the fingers so that the finger exerts enough grasping power to an object. The wrist consists of a flexible joint and a super-elastic round bar at the center as a backbone. The pneumatic driving system for the hand composed of nine pneumatic cylinders. We developed a dynamic model and confirmed to be capable of independent driving of each joint.