Suitability evaluation of various manufacturing technologies for the development of surgical snake-like manipulators from metals based on flexure hinges

In our group, a snake-like surgical manipulator has been developed which was fabricated using selective laser sintering and a biocompatible polyamide. This paper describes a concept to substitute polyamide with biocompatible metals in order to miniaturize the available system. At this point, beside the design approach and the material selection, the preferred fabrication method plays a crucial role. Therefore various manufacturing technologies have been explored to investigate their suitability. These include prominent methods of additive manufacturing and machining technologies. In this paper, encountered advantages and disadvantages of each technique are listed and discussed to find the most suitable concept. (C) 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.