Hardware design for a cable-free fully insertable wireless laparoscopic robotic camera.

The field of insertable laparoscopic robotic camera is gaining increasing attentions from researchers, surgeons, and also patients. Although many insertable laparoscope prototypes have been introduced, few of them get rid of the encumbrance tethering cable. In this paper, we proposed a hardware architecture for a magnetic actuated robotic surgical (MARS) camera, which facilitates a cable-free fully insertable laparoscopic surgical robotic camera with adequate in-vivo mobility. Modular design and preliminary test of on-board functional payloads have shown feasibility of a cable-free insertable wireless laparoscopic surgical camera based on off-the-shelf electronics and industrial wireless standards operating in ISM frequency bands at 2.4GHz. Potential improvements for laparoscopic surgery benefited from this hardware architecture include more dexterous in-vivo camera mobility and intuitive closed-loop robotic camera control.