Fiberbots: Robotic fibers for high-precision minimally invasive surgery

• DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adj1984
• Publication Date: 2024-01-19T18:58:32Z
• Authors: Mohamed E. M. K. ...; Jinshi Zhao; Bruno Gil Rosa; Hyun-Taek Lee; Daniel Simon; Khushi Vyas; Bing Li; Hanifa Koguna; Yue Li; Ali Anil Demircali; Huseyin Uvet; Gulsum Gencoglan; Arzu Akcay; Mohamed Elriedy; James Kinross; Ranan Dasgupta; Zoltan Takats; Eric Yeatman; Guang-Zhong Yang; Burak Temelkuran
• Keywords: Invasive surgery

Precise manipulation of flexible surgical tools is crucial in minimally invasive procedures, necessitating a miniature and robotic probe that can precisely direct the instruments. In this work, we developed polymer-based fiber with thermal actuation mechanism by local heating along sides single fiber. The robot was fabricated highly scalable drawing technology using common low-cost materials. This low-profile (below 2 millimeters diameter) exhibits remarkable motion precision 50 micrometers) repeatability. We control algorithms coupling endoscopic instruments, demonstrating high-resolution situ molecular morphological tissue mapping. assess its practicality safety during vivo laparoscopic surgery on porcine model. High-precision delivered endoscopically facilitates effective use cellular-level intraoperative identification ablation technologies, potentially enabling precise removal cancer challenging sites.