Design and Implementation of A Magnetic Actuated Capsule Camera Robot System for Single Incision Laparoscopic Surgery*

This paper presents the design and implementation of a novel magnetic actuated flexible-joint robotic surgery (MAFRS) camera system with four-degree-of-freedom(4-DOF) for single incision laparoscopic surgery. The design is based on the idea of motion decoupling and consists of an external driving device and a motor-free insertable wireless camera device with a flexible joint. Meanwhile, the design features a unified mechanism for anchoring, navigating, and tilting an insertable camera by an externally generated magnetic field. The control of the insertable camera without onboard motors has always been a problem. We have creatively adopted flexible materials and the new magnetic circuit design. It not only simplifies the structural design of the insertable camera but also meets the requirements of application scenarios. The initial prototype results in a compact insertable camera robot with a 19mm diameter and a 108.5mm length. The design concepts are analyzed theoretically and verified experimentally. The experiments validate that the proposed capsule robot design provides reliable camera anchoring and translation capabilities under various testing conditions, and the tilt angle of the camera can meet the practical application requirements.