• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2001.04a
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• pp.854-857
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• 2001

At present, colonoscopy is performed by means of quite long and flexible endoscopes and controlled manually. Although the flexibility of the distal tip allows the endoscope to follow the tortuous path of the colon, the insertion of the endoscope requires the endoscopist to exert forces on and to perform rotations of the proximal end; these actions cause discomfort to the patient. Though self-propelling colonoscopic systems has been suggested to overcome these problems, it is difficult to pass through highly curved regions of the intestine. In this paper, we introduce a steering mechanism for a self-propelling coloinlscope, the smart capsule, which has three actuator units. The mechanism is designed not only to move forward and backward but also to pass through the curved regions. We derived the governing equations of this mechanism. Active movements and motion control are developed.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2001.06b
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• pp.271-276
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• 2001

Conventional clonoscope is semiflexible tube that should be manipulated by operator for inspection and treatment. Therefore, it sometimes causes pain for the patient and even perforation to the wall of colon if a surgeon is not well trained. For safe colonoscopy, self-propelling robots with inchworm locomotion are studied. But, inchworm locomotion has some problems in adaptiveness to the variation of colon diameter. In this paper, we propose novel locomotive mechanism which can move in the colon without any external assistance. It has several cams that have constant phase difference each other and located along the centerline of the mechanism. This mechanism could realize the robotic endoscope which has continuous and smooth thrust force.