Intuitive's flexible tool design

A nice and interesting SILS tool concept was patented by Intuitive recently:

"The distal end of a surgical instrument is movable in all six Cartesian degrees of freedom independently of other components of a telemanipulated surgical system. The surgical instrument extends through a guide tube. The distal end is moved by actuators that are telemanipulatively controlled.

An object of aspects of the invention is to provide multiple telemanipulated surgical instruments, each surgical instrument working independently of the other and each having an end effector with at least six actively controlled degrees of freedom in Cartesian space (i.e., surge, heave, sway, roll, pitch, yaw), via a single entry port in a patient.  A further object of aspects of the invention is to provide multiple telemanipulated surgical instruments, each surgical instrument working independently of the other and each having an end effector with at least six actively controlled degrees of freedom in Cartesian space (i.e., surge, heave, sway, roll, pitch, yaw), via a single entry port in a patient and past intermediate tissue that restricts lateral movement of a rigid instrument body.  In accordance with aspects of the invention, a surgical instrument is inserted through a guide tube. The distal end of the surgical instrument is movable, and actuators can move the distal end in all six Cartesian degrees of freedom. These six degrees of freedom are independent of motions of the guide tube. The actuators are telemanipulatively controlled."

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