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Automatic Design of Compliant Surgical Forceps With Adaptive Grasping

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Article  in  IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters · January 2020

DOI: 10.1109/LRA.2020.2967715

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IEEE ROBOTICS AND AUTOMATION LETTERS. PREPRINT VERSION. ACCEPTED JANUARY, 2020 1

Automatic Design of Compliant Surgical Forceps

with Adaptive Grasping Functions
Yilun Sun1,† , Yuqing Liu1 , Lingji Xu1 , Yunzhe Zou1 , Angela Faragasso2,‡ and Tim C. Lueth1,††

Abstract—In this paper, we present a novel method for

achieving automatic design of compliant surgical forceps with
adaptive grasping functions. Compliant forceps are much easier
to assemble and sterilize than conventional rigid-joint forceps,
hence their use is spreading from traditional open surgery to
robot-assisted minimally invasive applications. However, many
compliant forceps still perform stiff grasping, and thus can dam-
age sensitive organs and tissues during the operation. Adaptive
grasping function is therefore required for safe manipulation
of vulnerable structures. Currently, it is difficult and time
consuming to use empirical methods for designing adaptive
compliant forceps for different surgical robotic applications. To
cope with this problem, we developed a topology-optimization-
based method able to synthesize adaptive compliant forceps
automatically. Simulation and experimental tests were conducted a)
to evaluate the adaptive grasping function of designed surgical
forceps. The results demonstrated that the developed method
greatly simplifies the design process and makes it possible to
efficiently realize task-specific compliant forceps.
Index Terms—Medical Robots and Systems; Mechanism De-
sign; Surgical Robotics: Laparoscopy.
b)
I. I NTRODUCTION Fig. 1. Overview of automatically designed adaptive surgical forceps: a)
Adaptive compliant forceps for different medical applications, b) Adaptive

I N recent years, numerous research studies have been fo-

cusing on the design of novel mechanisms and instruments
able to improve the performance of both, traditional and
grasping effect of the forceps when gripping a rigid cylinder.

robot-assisted surgical procedures [1]–[5]. Among these work, as they are much easier to assemble and sterilize [7]. Many
the design of surgical forceps, which are widely used in research studies have been exploring the use of compliant
various surgical interventions, has attracted great attention. mechanisms for designing surgical forceps. For instance, Lan
Although the conventional rigid-joint-based forceps are stable et al. developed a constant-force forceps for robot-assisted
and robust, limitations related to the material strength and the surgery by using compliant mechanism [8]. In [9], a compliant
accuracy, when fabrication is performed in micro-scale, make forceps for laparoscopic surgery has been designed by Naka-
their miniaturization cumbersome and hence, their adaptation mura et al. with shape memory alloy (SMA). Another SMA-
to minimally invasive surgery (MIS) applications difficult [6]. actuated compliant MIS grasper was realized by authors in [4]
To cope with these problems, compliant mechanisms, which with origami-inspired structure. Other studies have also tried to
encompass fewer mechanical components than rigid-joint- include force sensing capability into surgical robotic systems
based tools, are often used in the design of surgical forceps by using compliant forceps, as in the 2-DOF compliant MIS
forceps proposed by Hong and Jo [10] and the 3-DOF micro-
Manuscript received: September, 10, 2019; Revised December, 3, 2019;
Accepted January, 10, 2020.
forceps developed by Gonenc et al. [11]. However, despite all
This paper was recommended for publication by Pietro Valdastri upon these research efforts, most of the proposed compliant forceps
evaluation of the Associate Editor and Reviewers’ comments. This work was have very stiff gripper jaws, which may damage vulnerable
supported by Munich School of Robotics and Machine Intelligence (MSRM),
Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany.
tissues, such as blood vessels or nerves, during the surgery.
1 Yilun Sun, Yuqing Liu, Lingji Xu, Yunzhe Zou and Tim C. Lueth are with To deal with this problem, researchers have been developing
the Institute of Micro Technology and Medical Device Technology, Technical fin-ray-inspired forceps able to perform adaptive grasping of
University of Munich, Munich, Germany. yilun.sun@tum.de
2 Angela Faragasso is with the Service Robotics Laboratory, Department of sensitive tissues, which is an isosceles triangular structure
Precision Engineering, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, with multiple parallel stabilizers between its elastic sides
Tokyo 113-8656, Japan. faragasso@robot.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp [12], [13]. Although fin-ray-effect can be efficiently employed
† Student Member, IEEE, ‡ Member, IEEE, †† Senior Member, IEEE
in the design of adaptive compliant forceps, its adaptability
This letter has supplementary downloadable material available at
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org, provided by the authors. to different surgical applications is complicated and time
Digital Object Identifier(DOI): see top of this page. consuming. Therefore, advanced design methods for realizing
2 IEEE ROBOTICS AND AUTOMATION LETTERS. PREPRINT VERSION. ACCEPTED JANUARY, 2020

adaptive compliant forceps for different surgical applications adaptive compliant forceps automatically. Section III presents
are highly desirable. the design of adaptive compliant forceps for open surgery and
Over the last decades, topology optimization has become MIS. Experimental evaluations are conducted in Section IV
a popular method for achieving optimal design of compliant where, to validate the proposed solution, the automatically
mechanisms [14], [15]. The essence of topology optimization designed adaptive forceps are compared with conventional
lies in mimicking the evolutionary process of living creatures surgical forceps. Section V discusses the automatic design
in nature which always pursue the optimal structure to adapt method in terms of design efficiency and outlines the future
to their environment. In [16], Nishiwaki et al. presented a work. Conclusions are drawn in Section VI.
procedure for obtaining the optimal topology of compliant
mechanisms with small displacement by using the mutual en- II. D ESIGN M ETHOD
ergy formulation and homogenization method. For the design A. Overview of the Automatic Design Method
of task-specific mechanisms, Pedersen et al. proposed a topol-
The workflow of our automatic design method is shown in
ogy optimization based method in [17] for synthesizing path-
Fig. 2. Firstly, the design problem is defined by importing
generating compliant mechanisms automatically. Other studies
the initial design domain and the boundary conditions. Then,
have also tried to use topology optimization to improve the de-
during the topology optimization process, FE-analysis is per-
sign of compliant instruments for surgical robotic applications.
formed in each step to calculate the objective function. With
In [7], Kota et al. developed a topology optimized compliant
the calculated value of the objective function, an updating
manipulator for positioning and manipulating kidneys in robot-
scheme iteratively modifies the density of the material in
assisted surgery. Authors in [18] also employed topology
the design domain until the topology optimization process
optimization for designing a multifunctional compliant forceps
converges. Finally, a post-processing algorithm is executed to
which combines grasping and cutting functions. De Lange et
realize a smooth and 3D-printable forceps.
al. [19] realized a statically balanced compliant laparoscopic
grasper by using topology optimization in the automatic design
of the gripper. However, all these previous studies didn’t Define initial
Calculate
consider adaptive grasping function in their design. In [20], design domain Finite Element
Start objective
[21], several topology-optimization-based methods for creating and boundary Analysis
function
adaptive compliant grippers for industrial robots, in which conditions No
the geometric advantage and mechanical advantage of the
grippers were respectively maximized, have been proposed. Post-
Yes Updating
Nonetheless, the objective functions of these methods are very End processing of Converged?
scheme
complicated and still contain many design parameters which the forceps
must be manually determined. On the other hand, in most of
the current topology optimization methods, the solid modeling, TOPOLOGY OPTIMIZATION PROCESS
the finite element analysis (FEA) and the updating scheme of
the optimization algorithms, are usually performed in different Fig. 2. Flowchart of the developed topology optimization method for
developing environments and software, and thus, it is required achieving automatic design of adaptive compliant forceps.
to have additional interfaces between different platforms and
this makes the process inefficient [20]–[22]. In the current
state of the art, although some studies have realized automatic B. Solid Modeling with SG Library
design process by using one platform, it is still complicated Currently, two types of construction methods are used
to create very complex initial design domain for the topology for solid modeling, the Constructive Solid Geometry (CSG)
optimization process [23], [24]. and the Boundary Representation (B-rep) [27]. The standard
In this paper, we present an efficient method for achiev- file for 3D printing is a B-rep-based file in which a large
ing automatic design of adaptive surgical forceps by using number of triangles are used to represent the surface of a
topology optimization techniques. The entire solid modeling solid. Since the SG Library has been developed with the aim
and topology optimization process have been implemented in of enhancing the automatic design process of 3D printable
our Solid Geometry (SG) Library [25], a design platform we structures, it also employs B-rep format for solid modeling.
realized in Matlab. The SG Library can perform complex solid The basic data structure of 2D contours and 3D solids in the
modeling and integrate different evaluation methods, such SG Library are called Closed Polygon List (CPL) and Solid
as FEA and multi-body simulation [26]. With the automatic Geometry (SG). The CPL is implemented as a Matlab’s array
design method proposed in this paper, the design process in which the exterior boundary vertices of the contour are
of task-specific compliant forceps can be greatly simplified. listed in counterclockwise direction and the interior boundary
An overview of the fabricated adaptive compliant forceps for vertices in the clockwise direction (see Fig. 3a). The SG is
different surgical applications is shown in Fig. 1. implemented as a struct which contains a Vertex List (VL)
The remainder of the paper is organized as follows: Sec- and a Facet List (FL) to represent the boundary surface of a
tion II analyzes the automatic design process, introduces solid (see Fig. 3b). The CPL and SG can be easily realized by
the solid modeling method in the SG Library and presents using a modeling function in our SG Library with short and
the developed topology optimization technique for designing concise modeling commands [25].
SUN et al.: AUTOMATIC DESIGN OF COMPLIANT SURGICAL FORCEPS WITH ADAPTIVE GRASPING FUNCTIONS 3

0
−10
y[mm]

−20
−30
−40 −20 0 20 40
x[mm]
a)

Fig. 4. Design problem for the proposed topology optimization method. In

this case, an example for open surgery is used for illustration.
z[mm]

10
5 40
0 20 parameter, while ρmin is a prescribed minimum density used
0 0 to avoid singularity in the FEA process. L is a sparse vector
−20 x[mm] mainly composed of zeros except on the elements related to
y[mm] −20
b) −40 the degree of freedom (DOF) for the output displacement
uout of the forceps tip. ve and V0 are the material volume of
Fig. 3. Construction of 2D contour and 3D solid geometry with the SG
Library: a) An example of CPL. The red and blue arrows indicate the listing an element and the entire initial design domain, respectively.
directions of the vertices on the exterior and interior boundary respectively, The parameter g defines a prescribed volume fraction which
b) A 3D solid extruded by the CPL. controls the final volume of the design result. Fig. 4 illustrates
the general design problem for the proposed method with
C. Topology Optimization Method for Designing Adaptive an example for open surgery. Since forceps are normally
Compliant Forceps symmetric, a predefined 2D contour is used as half of the
initial domain, as the CPL from Fig. 3a) in this example. In
Since the realized compliant forceps are 2D structures, the the figure, the gray region ΩD depicts the design domain.
2D finite element method (FEM) implemented in the SG The black region ΩC represent the geometrical constraints
Library is employed in the topology optimization process. in which the density of the elements is predefined as 1 and
The 2D-FEM algorithm utilizes triangular element for mesh- cannot be modified during the optimization process. These
ing [13]. The displacement U of all nodes in the discretized constrains express the functionality of the forceps handle,
2D solid continuum can be calculated by solving the linear which has to hold the structure, and the one of the contact
equation system for solid mechanics [14]: surface of the gripper jaw, which has to grasp tissues. A
N
X displacement-based load Fin is applied on the forceps handle
KU = F with K = Ke (Ee ) (1) as input load to simulate the gripping force of human fingers.
e=1 uout is defined as the y-displacement of the forceps tip. To
where K is the global stiffness matrix of the continuum and achieve adaptive grasping function, two linear springs with
F is the load vector. K can be calculated by assembling stiffness kout and ktissue are applied on the tip and the
the N stiffness matrices Ke which are correlated to the middle region of the gripper jaw respectively. This makes
Young’s modulus Ee of the element. The goal of the topology it possible to simulate the external resistances during the
optimization method, used to synthesize the compliant forceps, grasping movements. We assumed that ktissue is greater than
is to find an optimal void-solid (0 or 1) material distribution ρ kout so that the sensitive tissue becomes the main external
of the 2D continuum which will allow to achieve the maximum resistance for the forceps to overcome. The proposed topology
displacement of the forceps tip with a given input load. The optimization process of compliant mechanisms always tries to
optimization problem is described by the following objective achieve the maximum output displacement while overcoming
function f (ρ): the internal and external resistance, hence the deformation
of the tissue during grasping will also be minimized in the
max : f (ρ) = uout = LT U

ρ


 optimization process. In general, the proposed method requires
11 predefined design parameters to start the automatic design

XN 


ve ρ e ≤ V 0 g process.

subject to : V (ρ) = (2)
e=1 
 The topology optimization problem in (2) has been solved

: KU = F 

 by using the Optimality-Criteria (OC) method proposed
in [14]. The updating scheme of the design variables ρ can be

p
: Ee = E0 ρe , 0 < ρmin ≤ ρe ≤ 1

written as:
where ρ is the design variable. Ee of the element is correlated 
−
to its density ρe by employing the Solid Isotropic Material with ρe ,
 if ρe Beη ≤ ρ−
e
Penalization (SIMP) method [28]. E0 and p are respectively ρnew
e = ρe Beη , if ρ− η
e < ρe Be < ρe
+ (3)

 + + η
the Young’s modulus of the solid material and the penalty ρe , if ρe ≤ ρe Be
4 IEEE ROBOTICS AND AUTOMATION LETTERS. PREPRINT VERSION. ACCEPTED JANUARY, 2020

ρ−

e = max(ρmin , ρe − m)

Objective function f [mm]


ρ+
e = min(1, ρe + m) (4) 10
ρ0e

=g in ΩD 8


∂f
− ∂ρ ∂f
− ∂ρ 6
e e
Be = ∂V
= (5) 4
λ1 ∂ρ λ 1 ve
e

where m is a move limit of the design variable ρe in each 2

step and η is a prescribed parameter for damping. ρnew
e is the 0
0 20 40 60 80 100
updated design variable. The initial design variable ρ0e in the
design domain ΩD is set to the prescribed volume fraction a) Iteration
g. Be in (5) can be obtained from the optimality condition
problem which considers both the objective function f (ρ)
and the volume constraint condition (V (ρ) − V0 g ≤ 0). The
Lagrangian multiplier λ1 can be determined by a bisection
algorithm when solving the optimality condition problem [23].
∂f
The sensitivity function ∂ρ e
with respect to ρe in (5) can be
formulated as:
∂f ∂f ∂Ee ∂f
= = pE0 ρp−1
e (6)
∂ρe ∂Ee ∂ρe ∂Ee
∂f ∂K
= −λT
2 U (7)
∂E ∂E
Kλ2 = L (8)
where λ2 can be calculated by solving the adjoint problem
represented by the system of linear equations in (8). E is the b)
vector containing all Young’s modulus Ee of the elements and Fig. 5. Topology optimization process of the adaptive compliant forceps for
L is defined as in (2). open surgery: a) The trend of the objective function f during the optimization
The design variables ρ reach a completely void-solid (0 process, b) The evolution process during some iterations. The final topology
of the forceps is reached at the 99th iteration.
or 1) material distribution, when the objective function f
converges within a certain tolerance ε. The checkerboard
prevention filter from [23] is then implemented, with mesh-
size-based filter radius, to ensure a reasonable and continuous [30] as material. E0 and ν for the FEA process were set to
topology of the design result. In the post-processing algorithm, 1700 MPa and 0.3 [30] while the displacement-based input
also implemented in the SG Library, we use the iso-contour load was 5 mm. To mimic the elasticity of humans’ artery,
method proposed in [29] to extract the boundary (a CPL) of the ktissue was set to 0.75 N/m [31]. The value of kout was
final design proposal and smooth it for constructing a solid in selected as 0.5 N/m, and thus, smaller than ktissue . The
B-rep format. The aim of this step is to realize the optimization prescribed volume fraction g was set to 0.3 while the move
results compatible with 3D printing technology. limit of the design variable ρe in each iteration was 0.05 and
the damping factor η in the updating scheme was 0.5. The
III. A PPLICATIONS TO S URGICAL F ORCEPS D ESIGN topology optimization process converged at the 99th iteration
within a tolerance ε of 0.005. The convergence time was
This section presents the design of two adaptive complaint 51.94 s. Fig. 5a) shows the trend of the objective function
forceps realized by using the proposed automatic design f over the iterations. It can be noticed that f reaches its
method. In particular, the first forceps has been designed for maximum, 9.15 mm, at the end of the process. The evolution
traditional open surgery while the second one has been realized process of the forceps topology in some iterations is illustrated
for robot-assisted MIS. All the calculations were executed on in Fig. 5b).
a computer equipped with an Intel Core i7 CPU at 2.9 GHz
As mentioned in Section II, the boundary CPL of the
and 16 GB of RAM.
optimization result was derived by using the iso-contour
method. The extracted CPL and its symmetrical duplicate
A. Adaptive Compliant Forceps for Open Surgery were merged and then extruded into a solid with thickness of
The design problem described in Section II-C (see Fig. 4) 5 mm. Fig. 6a) shows the constructed SG and the SLS-printed
was used to perform the automatic design process of open prototype of the adaptive compliant forceps. The adaptive
surgery forceps. The maximum length and width of the initial grasping function is shown in the FE-simulations presented
design domain were respectively 100 mm and 60 mm. The in Fig. 6b). The simulation is based on the geometrically non-
design domain was meshed into triangular elements with a linear FE-methods implemented in the SG Library [13]. In
maximum size of 0.4 mm. The forceps was printed with both simulations, a symmetrical load is applied on each handle
selective laser sintering (SLS) by using polyamide (PA2200) pair to shorten their distance by 10 mm. In the first case, no
SUN et al.: AUTOMATIC DESIGN OF COMPLIANT SURGICAL FORCEPS WITH ADAPTIVE GRASPING FUNCTIONS 5

y[mm]
−2
−4
−6
a)
−10 −5 0 5 10
x[mm]
a)

b)
Fig. 6. Design of the adaptive forceps for open surgery: a) The surface
model of the forceps in the SG Library and the 3D-printed prototype, b) FE-
simulations of the deformed compliant forceps showing the adaptive grasping
function and stress distribution. The red arrows indicate the applied load. b)

Objective function f [mm]

external resistance is applied on the gripper jaw. In the second 6
case, a rigid cylinder with the diameter of 12 mm is placed
between the gripper jaws of the forceps. From the simulation 4
results it can be noticed that, the optimized compliant forceps
deforms its gripper jaws to fit the shape of the grasped object,
as illustrated in Fig. 6b). The figure also shows how large 2
stresses emerged at the most deformed part of the forceps.
0
0 20 40 60 80
B. Adaptive Compliant Forceps for Robot-assisted Minimally
Invasive Surgery c) Iteration
Different from open surgery forceps, most MIS forceps
have millimeter-scale size and are usually actuated by a
cable. Therefore, to create a consistent model, we used our
automatic design method to synthesize a cable-driven forceps
head. The design settings are illustrated in Fig. 7a) and 7b).
The maximum length and width for initial design domain of
the entire forceps head were chosen as 20 mm and 12 mm,
respectively. The maximum element size of the FE-meshing
was 0.1 mm. The left boundary of the design domain was
defined as fixed in the FEA process. The dragging force of
the cable was applied on the symmetric axis of the design
domain with a distance of 7.5 mm to the left boundary and
the displacement-based load Fin was set to 2 mm. The values d)
of ktissue and kout were chosen as the one of the forceps
realized for open surgery, i.e. 0.75 N/m and 0.5 N/m. The
contact surface of the gripper jaw was defined as a constrained
domain ΩC . The volume fraction g was 0.4. The material
property of the forceps and realization process were also the
same of the one used for the open surgery forceps presented
in the previous section.
The topology optimization process converged at the 75th e)
iteration within a tolerance ε of 0.005. The convergence time
Fig. 7. Automatic design of adaptive forceps head for minimally invasive
was 28.67 s. Fig. 7c) shows the trend of the objective function surgery: a) A CPL constructed with the SG Library as initial design domain, b)
f , which has a maximum value of 5.78 mm. The evolution A schematic diagram illustrating the design domain and boundary conditions
process of the forceps topology is illustrated in Fig. 7d). FE- for the optimization problem, c) The trend of objective function during the
optimization process, d) The evolution process during some iterations. The
simulations were also performed to show the adaptive function final topology of the forceps is reached at the 75th iteration., e) FE-simulations
of the forceps head. The results are shown in Fig. 7e). In of the deformed compliant forceps showing the adaptive grasping function and
this case, large stresses also emerged in the thin structure of stress distribution. The red arrows indicate the applied load.
6 IEEE ROBOTICS AND AUTOMATION LETTERS. PREPRINT VERSION. ACCEPTED JANUARY, 2020

Fig. 8. SLS-printed laparoscopic manipulator for robotic MIS. Adaptive

grasping can be achieved by using the automatically designed forceps.

the flexure hinges. Additionally, the SLS-printed prototype of

the adaptive forceps head was embedded into a laparoscopic Fig. 10. Different forceps and elastic tubes used in the experiments.
manipulator and used for grasping phantom organs and tissues.
The entire system was realized with our SG Library. A soft
size of the deformed tubes during the tests. An overview of
robot structure was integrated in the mechanism to increase the
the experimental setup is shown in Fig. 9.
dexterity of the manipulator and also to show the potential of
The commercially available Cambridge Endo laparoscopic
the forceps for robot-assisted MIS. The bending movements of
manipulator [34], which is also equipped with a soft robotic
the soft robotic structure were actuated by two rotating wheels
bending mechanism as in the SLS-printed manipulator, and the
in the handle as shown in Fig. 8.
Kelly Hemostatic forceps [35], have been used to compare and
evaluate the grasping effect of our adaptive compliant forceps
IV. E XPERIMENTS
(see Fig. 10). The tubes were constructed with different ratios
This section compares the grasping effect of the realized of internal and external diameter, kie , to imitate blood vessels
adaptive compliant forceps with conventional surgical forceps of different thickness. The ratio kd of the diameter of the
and presents its adaptation in robot-assisted MIS. deformed tube in x and y axis was calculated to evaluate the
grasping effect. In particular:
A. Experimental Setup dint
3D-printed elastic tubes, which emulate the elastic property kie = (9)
dext
of organs and tissues, were used to test the grasping effect of
dy,def ormed tube
our prototypes. The cylindrical tubes were modeled using the kd = (10)
SG Library and fabricated with the stereolithography (SLA) dx,def ormed tube

printer (Formlabs Form2) [32]. A material with silicone-like where the y axis was defined as the direction in which the
properties (Elastic Resin) [32], which is suitable for mimicking gripping force is applied on the tube and the x axis was
humans’ tissues, was used for printing the parts. A digital its orthogonal axis. The loads were applied on the forceps
microscope (Conrad DP-M17) [33] was used to measure the handle to achieve complete closure of both forceps tips. With
conventional forceps, which perform stiff grasping, the elastic
tubes were sometimes fully squeezed before complete closure
of forceps tips was achieved. For these cases, where the piece
prevents full closure of the forceps, kd was calculated based
on the shape of the fully deformed part. The external diameter
of the tubes for open surgery forceps and MIS forceps were
15 mm and 6 mm, respectively.

B. Experimental Results
Experimental tests were carried out to evaluate the grasping
effect of the developed adaptive compliant forceps and com-
pare them with conventional forceps. Each test was repeated
three times. Mean value of the results is reported in Fig. 11.
kd was higher when the tube was slightly deformed. Hence,
the objective of the adaptive grasping function was to make
kd always close to 1, independent from the object to be
Fig. 9. Experimental setup: Elastic tubes with different ratios of internal and grasped. As is shown in Fig. 11b) and Fig. 11d), the kd
external diameter are used as test samples to evaluate the grasping effect of
conventional and adaptive forceps. A digital microscope measures deformation values of our adaptive compliant forceps are much closer to
of the tubes. 1 than the conventional rigid-joint-based forceps. Even for
SUN et al.: AUTOMATIC DESIGN OF COMPLIANT SURGICAL FORCEPS WITH ADAPTIVE GRASPING FUNCTIONS 7

a)
1
0.8
0.6
kd

0.4 a)
Adaptive
0.2
Kelly
0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8
b) kie

b)
Fig. 12. Endoscopic experiment in a training box: a) Setup of the test
composed of a training box, an endoscopic camera, a laparoscopic manipulator
and a monitor, b) Images taken by the endoscopic camera showing the
grasping effect of the conventional and adaptive MIS forceps.

c)
printed with the SLA-printer Form2 and imitating the ma-
1 terial properties of the soft tissues, was used during the
0.8 test. Grasping of the elastic artery in the training box was
performed with the Cambridge Endo laparoscopic manipulator
0.6
and our SLS-printed manipulator. With the equipped soft
kd

0.4 robot structure, both manipulators can also perform bending

Adaptive movements during grasping. The proposed MIS forceps could
0.2
Cambridge Endo successfully perform adaptive grasping in the training box
0 while the conventional forceps squeezed the artificial artery
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8
kie completely, as shown in Fig. 12b). The adaptive grasping
d) function of our robot-assisted MIS forceps was thus, also
Fig. 11. Experimental results: a) Experiment of open surgery forceps, b) Trend successfully verified in a MIS setup.
of the deformations of the tubes over the ratio of the internal and external
diameters. The tube is less deformed when using the adaptive forceps (blue)
than the Kelly Hemostatic forceps (red), c) Experiment of MIS forceps, d) V. D ISCUSSION
Trend of the deformations of the tubes over the ratio of the internal and
external diameters. The tube is less deformed by the adaptive MIS forceps The work presented in this letter aims at improving the
(blue) than the conventional MIS forceps (red). design efficiency of adaptive compliant forceps, for both, open
surgery and robot-assisted MIS. The proposed solution con-
sistently simplifies the design process, as it requires only 11
very thin tubes (kie > 0.7), both compliant forceps were still initial design parameters and one developing environment. Our
able to perform adaptive grasping (kd > 0.6). These results solution outperforms previous methods [20], [21], in which
haven shown the robustness of the realized adaptive grasping over 30 design parameters must be predefined in order to
function. While, for very thick tubes (kie < 0.2), which are trigger the automatic design process and at least 2 developing
very stiff and hard to deform, the kd value of all forceps was environments are used in the implementation of the entire
close to 1. This situation is similar to the case of diseased and design process. Besides, the proposed design framework is
blocked blood vessels. very agile and can also be modified for designing other task-
specific instruments. For example, it is possible to remove the
spring of ktissue in the design problem in Fig. 4 and Fig. 7b) to
C. Endoscopic Experiment in Training Box automatically synthesize compliant forceps with stiff grasping
To evaluate the grasping effect of the adaptive forceps functions. The potential and applicability of the proposed
head of the robot-assisted laparoscopic manipulator, we have adaptive forceps in surgical robotic systems was demonstrated
also conducted an experiment in a training box equipped by the endoscopic experiment presented in Section IV.
with an endoscopic camera (Depstech Endoscope) [36]. The Nevertheless, the method can still be improved in several
experimental setup is shown in Fig. 12a). An artificial artery aspects. As is shown in Fig. 6b) and Fig. 7e), some thin
8 IEEE ROBOTICS AND AUTOMATION LETTERS. PREPRINT VERSION. ACCEPTED JANUARY, 2020

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