7 research outputs found
Caveats on the first-generation da Vinci Research Kit: latent technical constraints and essential calibrations
Telesurgical robotic systems provide a well established form of assistance in
the operating theater, with evidence of growing uptake in recent years. Until
now, the da Vinci surgical system (Intuitive Surgical Inc, Sunnyvale,
California) has been the most widely adopted robot of this kind, with more than
6,700 systems in current clinical use worldwide [1]. To accelerate research on
robotic-assisted surgery, the retired first-generation da Vinci robots have
been redeployed for research use as "da Vinci Research Kits" (dVRKs), which
have been distributed to research institutions around the world to support both
training and research in the sector. In the past ten years, a great amount of
research on the dVRK has been carried out across a vast range of research
topics. During this extensive and distributed process, common technical issues
have been identified that are buried deep within the dVRK research and
development architecture, and were found to be common among dVRK user feedback,
regardless of the breadth and disparity of research directions identified. This
paper gathers and analyzes the most significant of these, with a focus on the
technical constraints of the first-generation dVRK, which both existing and
prospective users should be aware of before embarking onto dVRK-related
research. The hope is that this review will aid users in identifying and
addressing common limitations of the systems promptly, thus helping to
accelerate progress in the field.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figure
Accelerating Surgical Robotics Research: A Review of 10 Years With the da Vinci Research Kit
Robotic-assisted surgery is now well-established in clinical practice and has
become the gold standard clinical treatment option for several clinical
indications. The field of robotic-assisted surgery is expected to grow
substantially in the next decade with a range of new robotic devices emerging
to address unmet clinical needs across different specialities. A vibrant
surgical robotics research community is pivotal for conceptualizing such new
systems as well as for developing and training the engineers and scientists to
translate them into practice. The da Vinci Research Kit (dVRK), an academic and
industry collaborative effort to re-purpose decommissioned da Vinci surgical
systems (Intuitive Surgical Inc, CA, USA) as a research platform for surgical
robotics research, has been a key initiative for addressing a barrier to entry
for new research groups in surgical robotics. In this paper, we present an
extensive review of the publications that have been facilitated by the dVRK
over the past decade. We classify research efforts into different categories
and outline some of the major challenges and needs for the robotics community
to maintain this initiative and build upon it