Concept design of robotic modules for needlescopic surgery.

BACKGROUND: Many minimally invasive surgical procedures and assisting robotic systems have been developed to further minimize the number and size of incisions in the body surface. This paper presents a new idea combining the advantages of modular robotic surgery, single incision laparoscopic surgery and needlescopic surgery. MATERIAL AND METHODS: In the proposed concept, modules carrying therapeutic or diagnostic tools are inserted in the abdominal cavity from the navel as in single incision laparoscopic surgery and assembled to 3-mm needle shafts penetrating the abdominal wall. RESULTS: A three degree-of-freedom robotic module measuring 16 mm in diameter and 51 mm in length was designed and prototyped. The performance of the three connected robotic modules was evaluated. CONCLUSION: A new idea of modular robotic surgery was proposed, and demonstrated by prototyping a 3-DOF robotic module. The performance of the connected robotic modules was evaluated, and the challenges and future work were summarized.

Wireless implantable electronic platform for chronic fluorescent-based biosensors.

The development of a long-term wireless implantable biosensor based on fluorescence intensity measurement poses a number of technical challenges, ranging from biocompatibility to sensor stability over time. One of these challenges is the design of a power efficient and miniaturized electronics, enabling the biosensor to move from bench testing to long term validation, up to its final application in human beings. In this spirit, we present a wireless programmable electronic platform for implantable chronic monitoring of fluorescent-based autonomous biosensors. This system is able to achieve extremely low power operation with bidirectional telemetry, based on the IEEE802.15.4-2003 protocol, thus enabling over three-year battery lifetime and wireless networking of multiple sensors. During the performance of single fluorescent-based sensor measurements, the circuit drives a laser diode, for sensor excitation, and acquires the amplified signals from four different photodetectors. In vitro functionality was preliminarily tested for both glucose and calcium monitoring, simply by changing the analyte-binding protein of the biosensor. Electronics performance was assessed in terms of timing, power consumption, tissue exposure to electromagnetic fields, and in vivo wireless connectivity. The final goal of the presented platform is to be integrated in a complete system for blood glucose level monitoring that may be implanted for at least one year under the skin of diabetic patients. Results reported in this paper may be applied to a wide variety of biosensors based on fluorescence intensity measurement.

Propeller-based wireless device for active capsular endoscopy in the gastric district.

An innovative approach to active locomotion for capsular endoscopy in the gastric district is reported in this paper. Taking advantage of the ingestion of 500 ml of transparent liquid by the patient, an effective distension of the stomach is safely achieved for a timeframe of approximately 30 minutes. Given such a scenario, an active swallowable capsule able to navigate inside the stomach thanks to a four propeller system has been developed. The capsule is 15 mm in diameter and 30 mm in length, and it is composed of a supporting shell containing a wireless microcontroller, a battery and four motors. The motors enable the rotation of propellers located in the rear side of the device, thus obtaining a reliable locomotion and steering of the capsule in all directions in a liquid. The power consumption has been properly optimized in order to achieve an operative lifetime consistent with the time of the diagnostic inspection of the gastric district, assumed to be no more than 30 minutes. The capsule can be easily remotely controlled by the endoscopist using a joystick together with a purposely developed graphical user interface. The capsule design, prototyping, in vitro, ex vivo and preliminary in vivo tests are described in this work.