昆虫関節の剛性異方性を参考にしたバイオニックジョイントの設計と製作

概要

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In this paper, we newly propose a microarm which has a bionic joint for medical application, especially for minimally invasive surgery. The novel design of bionic joint has a characteristic of the stiffness anisotropy of insect legs, and comprised of several materials which have different stiffness characteristics. The advantages of proposed joint are as follows: (1) small, (2) flexible, (3) simple mechanism fabricated by stacking microassembly process, and (4) biocompatible. First of all, we designed the microarm based on analytical approach and confirmed that the joint structure can be realized by using materials with wide range (104 times different) of stiffness. Considering the material properties and machining accuracy, we determine the using of SU-8 (negative photoresist) and PDMS (polydimethylsiloxane) as materials of designed microarm. The structure of the microarm was fabricated by stacking layers with the micropattern by using photolithography techniques. By using this structure, we confirmed that the movement of the fabricated joint was successfully performed as designed and the developed joint has a potential for application of endoscopic surgery such as endoscopic sub-mucosal dissection (ESD).