Open-Source Research Platforms and System Integration in Modern Surgical Robotics

In modern medical research and development, the variety of research tools has grown in the previous years significantly. It is crucial to exploit the benefits of shared hardware platforms and software frameworks in order to keep up with the technological development rate. Sharing knowledge in terms of algorithms, applications and instruments allows researchers to help each other’s work effectively. This is a relatively new trend in the traditionally closed domain of Computer-Integrated Surgery, where community workshops and publications are now providing a thorough overview of system design, capabilities, know-how sharing and limitations. This paper overviews the emerging collaborative platforms, focusing on available open-source research kits, software frameworks, cloud applications, teleoperation training environments and shared databases that will support the synergies of the diverse research efforts in this area

Robotically Steered Needles: A Survey of Neurosurgical Applications and Technical Innovations

This paper surveys both the clinical applications and main technical innovations related to steered needles, with an emphasis on neurosurgery. Technical innovations generally center on curvilinear robots that can adopt a complex path that circumvents critical structures and eloquent brain tissue. These advances include several needle-steering approaches, which consist of tip-based, lengthwise, base motion-driven, and tissue-centered steering strategies. This paper also describes foundational mathematical models for steering, where potential fields, nonholonomic bicycle-like models, spring models, and stochastic approaches are cited. In addition, practical path planning systems are also addressed, where we cite uncertainty modeling in path planning, intraoperative soft tissue shift estimation through imaging scans acquired during the procedure, and simulation-based prediction. Neurosurgical scenarios tend to emphasize straight needles so far, and span deep-brain stimulation (DBS), stereoelectroencephalography (SEEG), intracerebral drug delivery (IDD), stereotactic brain biopsy (SBB), stereotactic needle aspiration for hematoma, cysts and abscesses, and brachytherapy as well as thermal ablation of brain tumors and seizure-generating regions. We emphasize therapeutic considerations and complications that have been documented in conjunction with these applications

Design and Development of a Reusable Component-based Architecture for Surgical Robotics

Robotics is a growing field that is reaching a wide variety of application areas. The employment of robots for the implementation of a task is not anymore a prerogative of certain branches of the industry. In fact, more and more frequently robots are utilized to support humans during the execution of an assignment and this requires a flexible system, able to adapt to the environment. Moreover, given the number of contexts in which robots are used, there is an increasing need for modular and reusable tools for the description of tasks. The robotic applications considered in this work are mainly related to robotic surgery, since minimally invasive surgery is a challenging field in which the employment of robots has enabled significant improvements in terms of quality of the procedures. This study provides a set of patterns aimed to the design and the development of a component-based software architecture for the description of a complex robotic task. The best practices illustrated in this work are built on the concept of separation of concerns and have been defined to promote the creation of a reusable framework of components for the robotics. The proposed patterns are first introduced and then applied to different case studies to demonstrate their adaptability to describe a complex robotics task in different application domains

Acta Universitatis Sapientiae - Electrical and Mechanical Engineering

Series Electrical and Mechanical Engineering publishes original papers and surveys in various fields of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering

Design and Development of a Reusable Component-based Architecture for Surgical Robotics

Robotics is a growing field that is reaching a wide variety of application areas. The employment of robots for the implementation of a task is not anymore a prerogative of certain branches of the industry. In fact, more and more frequently robots are utilized to support humans during the execution of an assignment and this requires a flexible system, able to adapt to the environment. Moreover, given the number of contexts in which robots are used, there is an increasing need for modular and reusable tools for the description of tasks. The robotic applications considered in this work are mainly related to robotic surgery, since minimally invasive surgery is a challenging field in which the employment of robots has enabled significant improvements in terms of quality of the procedures. This study provides a set of patterns aimed to the design and the development of a component-based software architecture for the description of a complex robotic task. The best practices illustrated in this work are built on the concept of separation of concerns and have been defined to promote the creation of a reusable framework of components for the robotics. The proposed patterns are first introduced and then applied to different case studies to demonstrate their adaptability to describe a complex robotics task in different application domains