Microsurgery is a particularly impactful yet challenging form of surgery. Robot assisted microsurgery has the potential to improve surgical dexterity and enable precise operation on such small scales in ways not previously possible. Intraocular microsurgery is a particularly challenging domain in part due to the lack of dexterity that is achievable with rigid instruments inserted through the eye. In this work, we present a new design for a millimeter-scale, dexterous wrist intended for microsurgery applications. The wrist is created via a state-of-the-art two-photon-polymerization (2PP) microfabrication technique, enabling the wrist to be constructed of flexible material with complex internal geometries and critical features at the micron-scale. The wrist features a square cross section with side length of 1.25 mm and total length of 3.75 mm. The wrist has three tendons routed down its length which, when actuated by small-scale linear actuators, enable bending in any plane. We present an integrated gripper actuated by a fourth tendon routed down the center of the robot. We evaluate the wrist and gripper by characterizing its bend-angle. We achieve more than 90 degrees bending in both axes. We demonstrate out of plane bending as well as the robot's ability to grip while actuated. Our integrated gripper/tendon-driven continuum robot design and meso-scale assembly techniques have the potential to enable small-scale wrists with more dexterity than has been previously demonstrated. Such a wrist could improve surgeon capabilities during teleoperation with the potential to improve patient outcomes in a variety of surgical applications, including intraocular surgery.

翻译：显微外科是一种极具影响力但仍具挑战性的手术形式。机器人辅助显微外科有望提升手术灵巧性，并以前所未有的方式实现在如此微小尺度上的精准操作。眼内显微外科是其中尤为困难的领域，部分原因在于通过眼球插入的刚性器械难以获得足够的灵巧性。本文提出了一种面向显微外科应用的毫米级灵巧腕部新设计。该腕部采用先进的双光子聚合（2PP）微制造技术制作，可构建具有复杂内部几何结构及微米级关键特征的柔性材料腕体。腕部横截面为边长1.25毫米的正方形，总长3.75毫米。其内部贯穿三根肌腱，通过微型直线驱动器驱动后，可在任意平面内弯曲。我们进一步提出一种集成式夹爪，由贯穿机器人中心通道的第四根肌腱驱动。通过测量弯曲角度对腕部及夹爪进行评估，实现了双轴均超过90度的弯曲。我们展示了平面外弯曲能力，以及机器人驱动状态下的抓取性能。该集成肌腱驱动连续体机器人设计及介观尺度装配技术，有望实现具有超越现有能力的毫米级灵巧腕部。此类腕部在遥操作手术中可提升外科医生操作能力，并有望改善包括眼内手术在内的多种外科手术的患者预后。