Towards the Development of a New Tendon-Driven Minimally Invasive Neurosurgical Intracranial Robot Available to Purchase

Surgical resection of deep intracranial tumors under image guidance has significant challenges. The surgeon cannot see beyond the line of sight and it is also difficult to avoid the functional nerves along the path. In this context, the design of a Minimally Invasive Neurosurgical Intracranial Robot (MINIR-II) under continuous MRI is critical. The primary goal of the overall procedure is to avoid critical brain structures to reach the tumor location. Upon reaching the tumor location, the electro-cautery at the robot tip should be controlled to resect the tumor. The new MINIR-II proposed in this work, though not yet MRI compatible, is a dexterous serial chain tendon-driven robot with larger inner space, smaller outer diameter, and less coupling effect of the tendons during actuation. Each joint of the robot was attached with two tendons and they were routed outside the robot around a pulley to achieve rotational degree of freedom. The four-joint assembled robot was manufactured using a rapid prototyping machine and was tested by an experimental setup to demonstrate the motion of the robot.