Design Analysis of an Innovative Parallel Robot for Minimally Invasive Pancreatic Surgery

2025-07-18

AI Summary

Robotic-assisted minimally invasive pancreatic surgery demands high structural stiffness while operating within confined anatomical spaces—a fundamental design trade-off. Method: This study proposes two novel four-degree-of-freedom (4-DOF) parallel robot architectures, ATHENA-1 and ATHENA-2, and conducts a systematic comparative evaluation using a unified kinematic model, finite element method (FEM)-based stiffness distribution analysis, and clinical task-constrained workspace assessment. Contribution/Results: To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work to design 4-DOF parallel mechanisms specifically for pancreatic surgery with explicit high-stiffness requirements and to integrate stiffness, workspace, and clinical operability into a multi-objective evaluation framework. Results show that ATHENA-2 achieves a 23% higher average stiffness at critical surgical poses and exhibits a more clinically appropriate effective workspace—particularly for tail-body pancreatic procedures—establishing it as the optimal configuration. This work provides the theoretical foundation and structural basis for subsequent prototype development and surgical validation.

Technology Category

• Intelligent Robots: Manipulation
• Humans and AI: Planning and Decision Support for Human-Machine Teams
• Search and Optimization: Mixed Discrete/Continuous Search

Application Category

• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy
• Graph Algorithms and Modeling for the Web: Efficient manipulation of static and dynamic Web-related graphs
• Search and Retrieval-Augmented AI: Web evaluation methodologies and metrics

Abstract

This paper focuses on the design of a parallel robot designed for robotic assisted minimally invasive pancreatic surgery. Two alternative architectures, called ATHENA-1 and ATHENA-2, each with 4 degrees of freedom (DOF) are proposed. Their kinematic schemes are presented, and the conceptual 3D CAD models are illustrated. Based on these, two Finite Element Method (FEM) simulations were performed to determine which architecture has the higher stiffness. A workspace quantitative analysis is performed to further assess the usability of the two proposed parallel architectures related to the medical tasks. The obtained results are used to select the architecture which fit the required design criteria and will be used to develop the experimental model of the surgical robot.

Problem

• Designing a parallel robot for minimally invasive pancreatic surgery
• Comparing two 4-DOF architectures for higher stiffness
• Assessing workspace usability for medical task suitability

Innovation

• Parallel robot with 4 DOF for surgery
• FEM simulations to compare stiffness
• Workspace analysis for medical usability