Development of a minimally invasive robotic interventional radiology for treatment of lung cancer-manufacture of a basic mechanism and verification experiment

There are surgical methods called Interventional Radiology (IVR) using CT equipments in medical treatments of lung cancers, a blood vessels, and so on. IVR has an advantage that invasiveness is low and medical treatments with local anesthesia are possible as compare with the fact that laparotomy surgeries require general one. Therefore the number of IVR surgery has been increasing in recent years. However, radiation exposure to doctors has been concerned in the current IVR, since medical doctors conduct the treatment using CT equipment. Thus, the IVR robot should be developed in order to avoid the radioactive exposure to doctors. In this research, a robot using a parallel link mechanism is developed from the viewpoints that hand accuracy and hand rigidity are high and motors can be arranged far from CT scanning plane. The dual delta-type parallel link is proposed. It has the structure which is arranged the delta-type parallel link mechanism with three degrees of freedom (DOF). First, the arm which has offset of the axis in consideration of interference was designed. Secondly, inverse kinematics of parallel link was analyzed. Next, Delta-type parallel link mechanism with three DOF was manufactured. Finally, basic motion of parallel link robot was confirmed.