US Patent Issued to INTUITIVE SURGICAL OPERATIONS on March 18 for "Robotic surgery system including position sensors using fiber Bragg gratings" (California Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 19 -- United States Patent no. 12,251,181, issued on March 18, was assigned to INTUITIVE SURGICAL OPERATIONS INC. (Sunnyvale, Calif.).

"Robotic surgery system including position sensors using fiber Bragg gratings" was invented by David Q. Larkin (Menlo Park, Calif.) and David C. Shafer (Menlo Park, Calif.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A surgical instrument is provided, including: at least one articulatable arm having a distal end, a proximal end, and at least one joint region disposed between the distal and proximal ends; an optical fiber bend sensor provided in the at least one joint region of the at least one articulatable arm; a detection system coupled to the optic...