A Preliminary Study on the Use of an Automatic Trocar for LAparoscopic Surgery (ATLAS)

This article is dedicated to introduce an Automatic Trocar for LAparoscopic Surgery (ATLAS). The first step in laparoscopic surgery is the port insertion which is known as the most important and potentially dangerous step. An inaccurate Veress needle placement or uncontrolled overshoot of a sharp, blind trocar toward the viscera are the common causes of an unsuccessful procedure. Therefore, a mechatronic device was designed and developed to overcome the shortcomings of the current port insertion techniques.
The system incorporates an automatic insertion apparatus and an automatic stop mechanism to halt the procedure upon reaching the abdominal cavity. A motor was provided to pass the needle through the abdominal layers and a pressure sensor was provided to detect reaching peritoneum and stop the entry mechanism.  
The system was tested on an anesthetized canine. ATLAS system stopped upon reaching its peritoneum and avoided injury to intra-abdominal organs. Subsequently, the position of the needle tip was evaluated using another endoscope.
The animal test of the system was promising and showed the potential of this system and its improved version in laparoscopic surgeries.