Development of five-finger hand-type robotic forceps for laparoscopic gastrointestinal surgery

In laparoscopic surgery, large organs are difficult to handle with one forceps, resulting in low surgical efficiency. In this study, to improve surgical efficiency, we developed a five-fingered robotic forceps that can be inserted through small incisions and has multiple degrees of freedom to handle large organs. The results of an experiment simulating sigmoidectomy showed that the proposed robotic forceps could shorten the surgical time. In addition, we confirmed that the physical burden while using the instrument was comparable to that of conventional forceps.