Hanglok’s "SGNIO- Puncture interventional surgery robot for Liver Solid tumors" (hereinafter referred to as "SGNIO"), for the improvement of doctor's surgical experience and novel appearance design, won the gold medal of the concept design group of the 11th "Governor's Cup" Industrial design Competition in Guangdong Province.

"Governor's Cup" Industrial Design Competition is the highest level of industrial design awards in Guangdong Province, and is also one of the earliest and most influential industrial design competitions in China. It has always been renowned at home and abroad for its deepest industrial penetration, the largest number of entries, the most practical results, and the strongest sense of professional belonging of industrial designers.


Hanglok has always regarded industrial design as an important means of innovation, and has taken creating excellent experience for doctors and patients as one of the important goals of robot research and development. Hanglok not only focuses on the specific product design, but also regards the surgical process as a service design, fully considering the complete experience path of doctors and patients before and after surgery, so as to reduce the operating burden of doctors and improve the operation efficiency of the department.

The products of traditional medical manufacturing enterprises are often based on the realization idea of the functional model of the research and development personnel, and only build the framework of the product in the form of the most easy to achieve the function. The result is that doctors need to spend more energy to adapt to the product, and bring poor experience to the users. Therefore, Hanglok conducted in-depth user research and user empathy in the early stage of product development, extracted the user's mental model, and then designed the conceptual model on this basis. Then, the conceptual model is used as the standard to realize and improve the final function, so that the product will not deviate from the user's needs as far as possible. This requires us to continuously optimize and polish the entire product development process closely around the user experience, so that the product can adapt to the doctor's operating habits and psychological expectations, rather than increasing the difficulty of the doctor's operation. In the research and development process, we will continue to conduct user testing and jointly develop with doctors, in order to have a good enough use experience after the product is finalized.


When designing the surgical robot, Hanglok deeply investigated the process and pain points of traditional surgery, fully considered every contact point of the doctor in the surgical process, and carefully honed every small operation of the doctor, so as to improve the efficiency and experience of the entire use process. The following figure shows the surgical process of SGNIO, which has been designed and validated to reduce the doctor's operation steps and time, allowing the robot to serve the surgical department more efficiently.


In addition to the design of user experience, Hanglok is also constantly exploring the appearance design style that is most suitable for surgical robots. Under the wave of Industry 4.0, the appearance of mainstream medical products emphasizes the design of the structure suitable for mass production, and follows the traditional Bauhaus concept of "function determines form" for manufacturing. In recent years, China's surgical robot industry is rising rapidly, and what is the most suitable style of surgical robot in China?

We believe that industrial design in the new era should integrate modern medicine, engineering methods and the essence of Chinese humanities and arts such as Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism and Medicine, and inherit traditional culture in product design. However, this can not be a simple texture and pattern tracing, should refine its connotation, to create a robot design style with Chinese characteristics.

The following describes the end of the robotic arm of SGNIO. Through the meaning of "dragon’s head", it can not only reduce the fear of patients in the operation of the instrument, but also highlight the seriousness and gravitas of the operation. It is inspired by the white jade dragon head of the early Ming Dynasty XI（觽）. "XI（觽）" is a tool worn by ancient people to untie the knot of the belt. Shuoyuan Xiuwen(《说苑·修文篇》)said: "Those who can cure trouble and resolve disorder pay XI（觽）." It can be seen that XI（觽）in the eyes of ancient people has the meaning of treating disturbance and resolving disorder, which is exactly in line with the goal of ablating tumors during puncture interventional surgery and reducing the risk of cancer.


At the same time, the indicator light at the end of the robot arm is designed in the position of the "dragon's eye", the so-called "adding finishing touch"（“画龙点睛”）, which is where the spirit of the robot is located. The shape of the lamp is not only the evolution of the shape of the eyes, but also the integration of the intention of "Buddha's hand"（“佛手”）in Dunhuang murals, implying the meaning of "magical hands bring back of life"(“妙手回春”）.


In addition, the robot's accessories, such as the design of the needle holder, also draw on the intention of "phoenix hairpin"（“凤簪”）and "jade dragon"（“玉龙”）in the cultural relics. Among them, the phoenix hairpin was unearthed in the tomb of the king of Liangzhuang, which is a ritual object in the Ming Dynasty. The hairpin head is hollow single phoenix, and the phoenix stands on the hollow auspicious cloud. Jade Dragon is carved from dark green Xiuyan jade, with smooth and clean body, vivid shape and exquisite carving, and is known as the "Three Star Tara Red Mountain Culture Jade Dragon"（“三星塔拉红山文化玉龙”）. The integration of these two classical intentions makes the appearance design of surgical robots more solid and grounded. It is not only a tool to be used, but also a spiritual connection with Chinese doctors.


The above is Hagnlok on SGNIO part of the design ideas analysis. Of course, the current design still has a lot to iterate and upgrade. One of our goals is to bring more value to doctors, hospitals and patients through design innovation.