Design and Evaluation of a Novel Rotatable One-Element Snake Bone for NOTES

The distal head of the natural orifice transluminal endoscopic surgery (NOTES) platform commonly uses the structure of a snake bone, which cannot rotate, and the manufacturing is often time-consuming. A novel rotatable, one-element snake bone for NOTES is proposed. This paper first describes the movement mechanism and actuation. The new structure, which is composed of hinge pairs for bending and track-sled rings for rotation, was designed to reach a 90 deg bending angle and 62 deg rotational angle. The workspace of the snake bone was derived using screw theory and was simulated on MATLAB. The relationship between the angle and wire displacement was analyzed in detail. The new snake bone system bent and rotated by manipulating control wires that were actuated by DC motors, and its angular movements were measured by motion sensors with an angle error within +/- 2.6 deg. The snake bone was mounted on a flexible tube, inserted into a colono-scopy model, and navigated by motor actuation to eventually reach the cecum. The experimental results demonstrate the new snake bone's ability to travel through a natural orifice by rotating and bending, which satisfies the mobility requirement for NOTES.