Surgical instrument with digital data interface

摘要

A surgical instrument that comprises at least one microcontroller arranged in the handle of the instrument and that communicates with the surgical apparatus—without the interposition of a radio link via the cable that already exists between the surgical apparatus and the surgical instrument. Safe data transmission is ensured not only in the high-interference environment of an active RF surgical apparatus, but also in, for example, water jet, argon plasma and cryosurgical apparatuses, endoscopes. A differential transmission technique is selected, wherein one or more conductor pairs (insulated conductors) are utilized, one of the conductors of said conductor pairs transmitting the signal and the other transmitting the inverted signal. By subtracting the two signals, the actual data signal is yielded on the receiver side. If feedback interferences from the environment act on the data transmission link, the subtractions performed on the respective receivers cancels out the interferences.

主权项

1. An RF surgical system comprising:
a supplying surgical apparatus for supplying an active medium, the supplying surgical apparatus comprising an apparatus microcontroller; an RF conductor connected to the apparatus microcontroller as a ground-reference potential; a cable for carrying the active medium and connected to the surgical apparatus; and an RF surgical instrument connected to the supplying surgical apparatus by the cable, said RF surgical instrument comprising:
a handle connected to the cable;at least one functional element coupled to the handle and configured to be supplied with the active medium by the supplying surgical apparatus;a plurality of control elements arranged on the handle; andan instrument microcontroller arranged on the handle and connected to the control elements, said instrument microcontroller being supplied with electrical energy via the cable and communicating with the surgical apparatus via the cable by transmitting data via data communications, wherein two insulated conductors for data transmission are provided in the cable, and the instrument microcontroller sends and/or receives the data to be transmitted on one insulated conductor and inverted data on the other insulated conductor.