Instrument carriage assembly for surgical system

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10555783-B2
Application number	US-201615263816-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 13, 2016
Priority date	Jun 1, 2012
Publication date	Feb 11, 2020
Grant date	Feb 11, 2020

Abstract

A robotic assembly is configured to support, insert, retract, and actuate a surgical instrument mounted to the robotic assembly. The robotic assembly includes an instrument holder base member, a motor housing moveably mounted to the instrument holder base member, a carriage drive mechanism operable to translate the motor housing along the instrument holder base member, a plurality of drive motors, a plurality of gear boxes, and a plurality of output drive couplings driven by the gear boxes. The robotic assembly includes a sensor assembly that includes an orientation sensor, a sensor target, and a sensor shaft drivingly coupling the sensor target to a corresponding one of the output drive couplings.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A robotic assembly configured to support, insert, retract, and actuate a surgical instrument mounted to the robotic assembly, the robotic assembly comprising:
an instrument holder base member;
a motor housing moveably mounted to the instrument holder base member;
a carriage drive mechanism operable to selectively translate the motor housing relative to the instrument holder base member along an insertion axis of the surgical instrument;
a plurality of drive motors, each of the drive motors being mounted to the motor housing;
a plurality of gear boxes, each of the gear boxes being drivingly coupled with one of the drive motors;
a plurality of output drive couplings, each of the output drive couplings being drivingly coupled with a corresponding one of the gear boxes, each of the output drive couplings being configured to drivingly couple with a corresponding input drive coupling of the surgical instrument; and
a sensor assembly that includes an orientation sensor, a sensor target, and a sensor shaft drivingly coupling the sensor target to a corresponding one of the output drive couplings through an aperture in an outer housing of the corresponding gear box, the sensor shaft being driven by an output link of the corresponding gear box that rotates in unison with the corresponding output drive coupling.

2. The robotic assembly of claim 1 , wherein the orientation sensor optically reads the sensor target.

3. The robotic assembly of claim 1 , comprising a plurality of sensor assemblies, each of the sensor assemblies including an orientation sensor, a sensor target, and a sensor shaft drivingly coupling the sensor target to a corresponding one of the output drive couplings through an aperture in an outer housing of the corresponding gear box; each sensor shaft being driven by an output link of the corresponding gear box that rotates in unison with the corresponding output drive coupling.

4. The robotic assembly of claim 3 , wherein the drive motors are disposed between the corresponding orientation sensors and the output drive couplings.

5. The robotic assembly of claim 4 , wherein each of the sensor shafts is drivingly coupled to the corresponding output drive coupling via a sensor shaft gear that extends through the aperture in the corresponding outer housing to engage an output gear that rotates in unison with the corresponding output drive coupling.

6. The robotic assembly of claim 5 , wherein:
two of the sensor shaft gears overlap along a shaft direction parallel to rotational axes of the sensor shafts by an overlap distance; and
one or more of the corresponding apertures and output gears is configured to accommodate the overlap of the sensor shaft gears along the shaft direction.

7. The robotic assembly of claim 1 , wherein the sensor shaft rotates at a rotation rate in response to rotation of the corresponding output drive coupling at the rotation rate.

8. The robotic assembly of claim 1 , wherein a gear ratio between at least one of the drive motors and the corresponding output drive coupling is less than 40:1.

9. The robotic assembly of claim 1 , wherein each of the output gear boxes have two or fewer gear reduction stages.

10. The robotic assembly of claim 1 , wherein at least one of the gear boxes include a planetary gear box that includes a shaft bearing configured to inhibit an axis of rotation of an inner race of the shaft bearing from becoming misaligned with an axis of rotation of an outer race of the shaft bearing.

11. The robotic assembly of claim 10 , wherein the shaft bearing includes two rows of rolling elements.

12. The robotic assembly of claim 1 , wherein at least one of the gear boxes include a planetary gear box that includes a carrier gear that has external gear teeth that are engaged by a sensor shaft gear extending through the aperture, the sensor shaft gear being drivingly coupled with the sensor shaft.

13. A robotic assembly configured to support, insert, retract, and actuate a surgical instrument mounted to the robotic assembly, the robotic assembly comprising:
an instrument holder base member;
a motor housing moveably mounted to the instrument holder base member;
a carriage drive mechanism operable to selectively translate the motor housing relative to the instrument holder base member along an insertion axis of the surgical instrument;
five drive motors, each of the drive motors being mounted to the motor housing, each of the drive motors including a magnetic flux shield;
five gear boxes, each of the gear boxes being drivingly coupled with one of the drive motors;
five output drive couplings, each of the output drive couplings being drivingly coupled with a corresponding one of the gear boxes, each of the output drive couplings configured to be drivingly coupled with a corresponding input drive coupling of the surgical instrument; and
five sensor assemblies, each sensor assembly including an orientation sensor and a sensor shaft drivingly coupling the orientation sensor to a corresponding one of the output couplings through an aperture in an outer housing of the corresponding gear box, the sensor shaft being driven by an output link of the corresponding gear box that rotates in unison with the corresponding output drive coupling.

14. The robotic assembly of claim 13 , wherein one or more of the output drive couplings are constrained to rotate around a rotation axis substantially parallel to the insertion axis.

15. The robotic assembly of claim 13 , wherein the output drive couplings are arranged in a pattern with four corner output drive couplings and a central output drive coupling disposed between the four corner output drive couplings.

16. The robotic assembly of claim 13 , wherein a maximum of two output drive couplings are stacked in a width direction of the motor housing.

17. The robotic assembly of claim 13 , further comprising a radio frequency identification (RFID) antenna module designed to read an instrument RFID tag at a range between 0 mm and approximately 20 mm separation distance.

18. The robotic assembly of claim 13 , comprising a circuit board including the five orientation sensors of the five sensor assemblies.

19. The robotic assembly of claim 18 , wherein the circuit board further includes five rotor orientation sensors, each rotor orientation sensor being configured to monitor angular orientation of a rotor of a corresponding one of the five drive motors.

20. The robotic assembly of claim 13 , wherein:
the surgical instrument includes a two-fingered end effector;
each of two of the output drive couplings that are furthest away from the insertion axis is configured to articulate a corresponding finger of the two-fingered end effector; and
the two-fingered end effector can be articulated to provide both grip and yaw motions of the two-fingered end effector.

Assignees

• Intuitive Surgical Operations

Inventors

• Schena Bruce Michael
• Dachs Ii Gregory W
• Solomon Todd

Classifications

• A61B2017/00477

  Coupling (A61B2017/0046 takes precedence) · CPC title

• A61B90/98

  using electromagnetic means, e.g. transponders · CPC title

• A61B34/20

  Surgical navigation systems; Devices for tracking or guiding surgical instruments, e.g. for frameless stereotaxis · CPC title

• A61B34/30 Primary

  Surgical robots · CPC title

• A61B34/37

  Leader-follower robots (A61B34/35 takes precedence) · CPC title