Robotic endoscopy system (easyEndo) with a robotic arm mountable on a conventional endoscope

The use of flexible endoscope has been rising inconveniences. Steering of the distal section is not intuitive and the weight of the endoscope burdens a physical pressure on physicians who use it continuously for a long time. Also, the limited dexterity of an instrument makes therapeutic procedures more difficult, and further the unintended communications often occur during cooperation with assistants. These degrade the efficiency and thus increase the procedure time. In this paper, we propose a robotic endoscopy system (easyEndo) that can be mounted on a conventional endoscope and facilitate solo-endoscopy with two intuitive hand-held controllers. Furthermore, a robotic arm is presented that can be attached to the endoscope to assist with tissue traction. To validate the robotic endoscopy system, experiments to simulate biopsy and lesion marking were conducted with novices. The results showed that the robotic manipulations improved efficiency and reduced workload than manual manipulation. Subsequently, a prototype of the robotic arm was attached at the distal end of the endoscope, and the feasibility of tissue traction was confirmed by a simulation of pulling a rubber band.