Development of Flexible Robotic Endoscopes for Minimally Invasive Cardiac Surgery

The aim of the project is to develop flexible endoscopes for Micro Invasive Cardiac Surgeries.The rigid endoscopes currently used have a very small viewing ranges, while the flexible endoscopes are difficult to manipulate. A new design for endoscopes have been developed so as to address the issues faced in traditional flexible endoscopes, by introducing a constraint rod to vary the amount of flexible and rigid sections of the endoscope. Two such endoscopes have been designed for two specific applications. The first one is an independent hand held endoscope designed for high portability while the second endoscope is designed for intelligent tele-operated haptic interface. More information can be found here.

The control system was developed using a STM32F4 MCU to implement a stepper control based on frequency modulated PWM signals.