The Development of multi lumen tube actuator for insertion of endoscope
and its evaluation
1. Background & Introduction
Recently, large intestine diseases are increasing and the demands for endoscope inspection are
rising. Inspection of endoscope is very important and needed from the medical point of view.
Endoscope insertion to the large intestine is not always easy and it depended on the skill of doctor.
From these backgrounds, medical equipments supporting the insertion will be useful, especially the
development of small actuators and mechanisms to be attached on endoscopes to realize propelling
function are strongly expected. The aim of this research is to develop the device that can inspect the
large intestine safety and certainly. This device is tube structure, has four air chambers, and is driven
by pneumatic pressure. In this reserch, the device is designed using non-linear FEM. Non-linear
FEM can optimize the cross section of the device.
2. Design & fabrication of Improved Tetra Chamber Actuator
Figuer.1 shows the actuator developed in this reserch. It’s named Improved Tetra Chamber Actuator.
This actuator has four chambers and three layer structure. This design is designed and optimized by
non linear FEM.Fig.2 shows motion of Improved Tetra Chamber Actuator. From result of
optimization of FEM, we fabricated Improved Tetra Chamber Actuator using CAD/CAM
process.Fig.3 shows the fabricated actuator.
Fig.1 Design of Improved Tetra Chamber Actuator
Fig.2 Motion of Improved Tetra Chamber Actuator
Fig.3 The fabricated actuator
3. Function of Improved Tetra Chamber Actuator
We made the experiments to confirm this performance using four actuators in parallel. The
actuators located in parallel were shown experimentally to work as a propelling mechanism. Fig.4
shows the experiment of object propelling. It can be concluded the Improved Tetra Chamber
Actuator has a great potential for uses in propelling mechanisms for endoscope.
Fig.4 Experiment of object propelling