Control Architectures for Robotic Assistance in Beating Heart Surgery

Tese de doutoramento em Engenharia Electrotécnica e de Computadores, no ramo de especialização em Automação e Robótica, apresentada ao Departamento de Engenharia Electrotécnica e de Computadores da Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade de CoimbraDoenças cardiovasculares são a primeira causa de morte no mundo. Todos os anos mais de 17 milhões de pessoas morrem, representando 29% do número total de mortes. As doenças coronárias são as mais críticas, atingindo mais de 7.2 milhões de mortes. Para reduzir o risco de morte, o "bypass" coronário é a intervenção cirúrgica mais comum. Atualmente este procedimento envolve uma esternotomia mediana e um "bypass" cardiopulmonar, permitindo que uma máquina externa implemente as funções de oxigenação e bombeamento de sangue. Contudo, esta máquina externa é fonte de muitas complicações pós-operatórias, incluindo a morte de pacientes. Estes problemas motivam o estudo e desenvolvimento de técnicas cirúrgicas sem parar o funcionamento do coração. Nestes casos, os batimentos cardíacos e a respiração representam as principais fontes de perturbação. Foram desenvolvidos estabilizadores mecânicos para diminuir localmente o movimento cardíaco. Colocado numa região de específica (por exemplo, na artéria coronária), estes estabilizadores limitam o movimento por pressão e sucção. Apesar dos melhoramentos feitos ao longo dos anos, ainda existe um movimento residual considerável, e o cirurgião tem que os compensar manualmente. Torna-se então natural incluir dispositivos robóticos para ajudar na prática médica, melhorando a precisão, segurançae conforto de tarefas cirúrgicas. O sistema cirúrgico da Vinci é atualmente o sistema robótico mais avançado para a prática médica, com elevado desempenho em tarefas de destreza, precisão e segurança, apesar de não fornecer soluções de realimentação táctil, nem de compensação automática de movimentos fisiológicos. O trabalho desta tese é na área da robótica para cirurgias cardíacas com o coração a bater. Baseada na realimentação da força, esta tese explora novas arquiteturas de controlo com compensação automática dos movimentos cardíacos. São feitos testes experimentais em cenários muito realistas, sem utilizar seres vivos. Um robô denominado "Heartbox" equipado com um coração real reproduz movimentos cardíacos, enquanto que outro robô manipulador aplica forças cirúrgicas nesse coração com batimento artificial. As forças de interação fornecem realimentação de contacto ao cirurgião. O principal desafio científico deste trabalho é a ligação de técnicas de compensação autónoma de movimentos fisiológicos com controlo de força e realimentação haptica.Cardiovascular diseases are the first cause of mortality in the world. More than 17 million people die every year, representing 29% of all global deaths. Among these, coronary heart diseases are the most critical ones, reaching up to 7.2 million deaths. To reduce the risk of death the coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) is the most common surgical intervention. Currently, the procedure involves a median sternotomy, an incision in the thorax allowing a direct access to the heart, and a cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB), where heart and lung functionalities are performed by an extracorporal machine. Unfortunately the heart-lung machine is the greatest source of complications and post-operatory mortality for patients. Problems involved have motivated beating heart surgery that circumvent CPB procedure. Heartbeats and respiration represent the two main sources of disturbances during off-pump surgery. Mechanical stabilizers have been conceived for locally decreasing heart motion. Placed around a region of interest (e.g., coronary artery), these stabilizers constraint the motion by suction or pressure. Despite many improvements done over the years, considerable residual motion still remains and the surgeon have to manually compensate them. Robotic assistance has the potential to offer significant improvements to the medical practice in terms of precision, safety and comfort. Theda Vinci surgical system is the most popular and sophisticated. Although it has considerably improved dexterity, precision and safety, no solution for restoring tactile feedback to the surgeon exists and physiological motion compensation still needs to be manually canceled by the surgeon. The work presented in this thesis focus on robotic assistance for beating heart surgery. Based on force feedback, we designed new control architectures providing autonomous physiological motion compensation. Experimental assessments have been performed through a realistic scenario. A Heartbox robot equipped with an \textit{ex vivo} heart reproduces heart motion and a robot arm generates desired surgical forces on the moving heart. Interaction forces provide the haptic feedback for the surgeon. Merging autonomous motion compensation techniques with force control and haptic feedback is a major scientific challenge that we tackle in this work.FCT - SFRH/BD/74278/201

Soft pneumatic actuators: a review of design, fabrication, modeling, sensing, control and applications

Soft robotics is a rapidly evolving field where robots are fabricated using highly deformable materials and usually follow a bioinspired design. Their high dexterity and safety make them ideal for applications such as gripping, locomotion, and biomedical devices, where the environment is highly dynamic and sensitive to physical interaction. Pneumatic actuation remains the dominant technology in soft robotics due to its low cost and mass, fast response time, and easy implementation. Given the significant number of publications in soft robotics over recent years, newcomers and even established researchers may have difficulty assessing the state of the art. To address this issue, this article summarizes the development of soft pneumatic actuators and robots up until the date of publication. The scope of this article includes the design, modeling, fabrication, actuation, characterization, sensing, control, and applications of soft robotic devices. In addition to a historical overview, there is a special emphasis on recent advances such as novel designs, differential simulators, analytical and numerical modeling methods, topology optimization, data-driven modeling and control methods, hardware control boards, and nonlinear estimation and control techniques. Finally, the capabilities and limitations of soft pneumatic actuators and robots are discussed and directions for future research are identified

Affective Computing

This book provides an overview of state of the art research in Affective Computing. It presents new ideas, original results and practical experiences in this increasingly important research field. The book consists of 23 chapters categorized into four sections. Since one of the most important means of human communication is facial expression, the first section of this book (Chapters 1 to 7) presents a research on synthesis and recognition of facial expressions. Given that we not only use the face but also body movements to express ourselves, in the second section (Chapters 8 to 11) we present a research on perception and generation of emotional expressions by using full-body motions. The third section of the book (Chapters 12 to 16) presents computational models on emotion, as well as findings from neuroscience research. In the last section of the book (Chapters 17 to 22) we present applications related to affective computing

Industrial Applications: New Solutions for the New Era

This book reprints articles from the Special Issue "Industrial Applications: New Solutions for the New Age" published online in the open-access journal Machines (ISSN 2075-1702). This book consists of twelve published articles. This special edition belongs to the "Mechatronic and Intelligent Machines" section