By mimicking the principals of origami, researchers from Brigham Young University have engineered remarkably small and compact surgical tools. The goal, researchers say, is to create a new technology that is so small that surgical incisions can heal on their own without sutures.
"The whole concept is to make smaller and smaller incisions," Larry Howell, a BYU mechanical engineering professor, explained in a news release. "To that end, we're creating devices that can be inserted into a tiny incision and then deployed inside the body to carry out a specific surgical function."
Researchers were inspired to create increasingly smaller surgical tools since current traditional models have reached their limit and cannot be made any smaller. Their innovative design eliminates the need for pin joints and other parts and relies on the inherent bending of origami to create motion.
Howell worked alongside professors Spencer Magleby and Brian Jensen and a team of BYU students to create the new super tiny surgical tools. As part of the study, the university recently licensed a series of compliant mechanism technologies to Intuitive Surgical, the world leader in robotic surgery and the maker of the popular da Vinci Surgical System.
"These small instruments will allow for a whole new range of surgeries to be performed - hopefully one day manipulating things as small as nerves," Magleby added. "The origami-inspired ideas really help us to see how to make things smaller and smaller and to make them simpler and simpler."
For example, robotically controlled forceps have been made so small that they can pass through an opening only three millimeters in size, which is roughly the thickness of two pennies held together.
BYU researchers are also working towards creating tools such as the D-core. This device starts out flat when inserted into an incision, then expands to become two rounded surfaces that roll on each other, mimicking the movement made by spinal discs.
Researchers say their innovative medical technology involves similar principles used to create compact space equipment for NASA.
"Those who design spacecraft want their products to be small and compact because space is at a premium on a spacecraft, but once you get in space, they want those same products to be large, such as solar arrays or antennas," Magleby explained. "There's a similar idea here: We'd like something to get quite small to go through the incision, but once it's inside, we'd like it to get much larger."
Their findings were recently published in the journal Mechanism and Machine Theory.
