Medical Robotics

The first generation of surgical robots are already being installed in a number of operating rooms around the world. Robotics is being introduced to medicine because it allows for unprecedented control and precision of surgical instruments in minimally invasive procedures. So far, robots have been used to position an endoscope, perform gallbladder surgery and correct gastroesophogeal reflux and heartburn. The ultimate goal of the robotic surgery field is to design a robot that can be used to perform closed-chest, beating-heart surgery. The use of robotics in surgery will expand over the next decades without any doubt. Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS) is a revolutionary approach in surgery. In MIS, the operation is performed with instruments and viewing equipment inserted into the body through small incisions created by the surgeon, in contrast to open surgery with large incisions. This minimizes surgical trauma and damage to healthy tissue, resulting in shorter patient recovery time. The aim of this book is to provide an overview of the state-of-art, to present new ideas, original results and practical experiences in this expanding area. Nevertheless, many chapters in the book concern advanced research on this growing area. The book provides critical analysis of clinical trials, assessment of the benefits and risks of the application of these technologies. This book is certainly a small sample of the research activity on Medical Robotics going on around the globe as you read it, but it surely covers a good deal of what has been done in the field recently, and as such it works as a valuable source for researchers interested in the involved subjects, whether they are currently “medical roboticists” or not

Mobility, Navigation and Localization Towards Robotic Endoscopy

With significant progress being made towards improving endoscope technology such as capsule endoscopy and robotic endoscopy, the development of advanced strategies for manipulating, controlling and more generally, easing the accessibility of these devices for physicians is an important next step. This work presents the development of several robotic platforms for experimentally testing navigation and localization strategies in robotic endoscopy followed by the development and testing of navigation strategies using these devices. Finally, visual and visual inertial localization and mapping is explored on two of these robotic systems. We first present a detailed description on the state-of-the-art with regard to minimally invasive robotic surgery and then follow this with in-depth description of our design and validation of two important systems, the Robotic Endoscope Platform (REP) and the Modular Endoscopy Simulation Apparatus (MESA), for exploring some of the challenges in robotic endoscopy. Following these descriptions we present a technique for autonomous navigation of the REP within the MESA as well as an attempt at applying Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) to allow for the real-time localization of this system. Finally, we transition these techniques to the Endoculus, a complete robotic endoscope suitable for in vivo testing, and demonstrate both autonomous navigation for this device, and the implementation of three different SLAM systems for localization and mapping of the Endoculus system in real-time. Throughout these experiments we demonstrate the potential for advanced methods in computer vision along with other sensory techniques to substantially benefit endoscopy, enabling greater and greater autonomy of these systems and furthering the case for robotic endoscopy as a whole.</p

Hand-eye calibration, constraints and source synchronisation for robotic-assisted minimally invasive surgery

In robotic-assisted minimally invasive surgery (RMIS), the robotic system allows surgeons to remotely control articulated instruments to perform surgical interventions and introduces a potential to implement computer-assisted interventions (CAI). However, the information in the camera must be correctly transformed into the robot coordinate as its movement is controlled by the robot kinematic. Therefore, determining the rigid transformation connecting the coordinates is necessary. Such process is called hand-eye calibration. One of the challenges in solving the hand-eye problem in the RMIS setup is data asynchronicity, which occurs when tracking equipments are integrated into a robotic system and create temporal misalignment. For the calibration itself, noise in the robot and camera motions can be propagated to the calibrated result and as a result of a limited motion range, the error cannot be fully suppressed. Finally, the calibration procedure must be adaptive and simple so a disruption in a surgical workflow is minimal since any change in the setup may require another calibration procedure. We propose solutions to deal with the asynchronicity, noise sensitivity, and a limited motion range. We also propose a potential to use a surgical instrument as the calibration target to reduce the complexity in the calibration procedure. The proposed algorithms are validated through extensive experiments with synthetic and real data from the da Vinci Research Kit and the KUKA robot arms. The calibration performance is compared with existing hand-eye algorithms and it shows promising results. Although the calibration using a surgical instrument as the calibration target still requires a further development, results indicate that the proposed methods increase the calibration performance, and contribute to finding an optimal solution to the hand-eye problem in robotic surgery

Remote Access and Computerized User Control of Robotic Micromanipulators

Nano- and micromanipulators are critical research tools in numerous fields including micro-manufacturing and disease study. Despite their importance, nano- and micromanipulation systems remain inaccessible to many groups due to price and lack of portability. An intuitive and remotely accessible manipulation system helps mitigate this access problem. Previously, optimal control hardware for single-probe manipulation and the effect of latency on user performance were not well understood. Remote access demands full computerization; graphical user interfaces with networking capabilities were developed to fulfill this requirement and allow the use of numerous hardware controllers. Virtual environments were created to simulate the use of a manipulator with full parametric control and measurement capabilities. Users completed simulated tasks with each device and were surveyed about their perceptions. User performance with a commercial manipulator controller was exceeded by performance with both a computer mouse and pen tablet. Latency was imposed within the virtual environment to study it’s effects and establish guidelines as to which latency ranges are acceptable for long-range remote manipulation. User performance began to degrade noticeably at 100 ms and severely at 400 ms and performance with the mouse degraded the least as latency increased. A computer vision system for analyzing carbon nanotube arrays was developed so the computation time could be compared to acceptable system latency. The system characterizes the arrays to a high degree of accuracy and most of the measurement types of obtainable fast enough for real-time analysis

A high speed sensor system for tactile interaction research

Schürmann C. A high speed sensor system for tactile interaction research. Bielefeld: Bielefeld University Library; 2013.In this work we will describe and implement the first tactile sensor system that combines the properties of modularity with a very high sensing speed, a high sensitivity and a high spatial resolution. This unique combination of features enables researchers to develop novel applications and makes it possible to replace task specific tactile sensors with a single system. The very high sensing speed of the system allows for slip detection during robot grasping. And as all our sensor cells are sampled with the same high frequency, our system can even enable the slip detection for multiple contact points at the same time. This high speed was made possible through the development of a highly integrated parallel sensor sampling architecture. The modularity of the system allows it to be employed in a multitude of applications. Tactile sensitive surfaces of various dimensions can be easily realized through a very simple ’plug and use’ principle without the need for software configuration by the user. This was made possible by developing a new bus system that allows the relative localization of the participants. Our system can be used to create tactile sensitive table surfaces with a large amount of sensor cells and due to its high speed design still provide for real time frame rates. The flexibility and high performance of the system enabled us to develop a tactile sensitive object that allows the continuous high speed monitoring of human finger forces. For this we solved the problem of integrating the tactile sensors to allow free movement of the object, while maintaining a constant high rate of data capture and realizing a low latency synchronization to external devices. The high sensitivity of the system was made possible through technical innovation in the state of the art of resistive based tactile sensors. We did so by creating an optimized sensor cell shape and investigating the behavior of different sensor materials. The knowledge gained in this process was further used to advance the existing method of sensor normalization into a real time method. We will present a range of tactile interaction scenarios that have been realized with the tactile sensor system named Myrmex. These scenarios include the investigating of human grasp force control during a pick and place task, a tactile table for integration into an intelligent household and a tactile table for the manipulation of virtual clay as a form of finger training. In addition we will present a selection of scenarios where the Myrmex system was employed by other researchers, as in using the sensor modules as (large) tactile fingertips on robot arms to implement tactile servoing or slip detection during object grasping. The system has also been used to study human finger forces as well as investigating novel methods for prosthesis control. The positive results from all the scenarios support our conclusion that the developed Myrmex system is a very valuable and reliable tool for the research of tactile interactions

High-resolution fluorescence endomicroscopy for rapid evaluation of breast cancer margins

Breast cancer is a major public health problem world-wide and the second leading cause of cancer-related female deaths. Breast conserving surgery (BCS), in the form of wide local excision (WLE), allows complete tumour resection while maintaining acceptable cosmesis. It is the recommended treatment for a large number of patients with early stage disease or, in more advanced cases, following neoadjuvant chemotherapy. About 30% of patients undergoing BCS require one or more re-operative interventions, mainly due to the presence of positive margins. The standard of care for surgical margin assessment is post-operative examination of histopathological tissue sections. However, this process is invasive, introduces sampling errors and does not provide real-time assessment of the tumour status of radial margins. The objective of this thesis is to improve intra-operative assessment of margin status by performing optical biopsy in breast tissue. This thesis presents several technical and clinical developments related to confocal fluorescence endomicroscopy systems for real-time characterisation of different breast morphologies. The imaging systems discussed employ flexible fibre-bundle based imaging probes coupled to high-speed line-scan confocal microscope set-up. A preliminary study on 43 unfixed breast specimens describes the development and testing of line-scan confocal laser endomicroscope (LS-CLE) to image and classify different breast pathologies. LS-CLE is also demonstrated to assess the intra-operative tumour status of whole WLE specimens and surgical excisions with high diagnostic accuracy. A third study demonstrates the development and testing of a bespoke LS-CLE system with methylene blue (MB), an US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved fluorescent agent, and integration with robotic scanner to enable large-area in vivo imaging of breast cancer. The work also addresses three technical issues which limit existing fibre-bundle based fluorescence endomicroscopy systems: i) Restriction to use single fluorescence agent due to low-speed, single excitation and single fluorescence spectral band imaging systems; ii) Limited Field of view (FOV) of fibre-bundle endomicroscopes due to small size of the fibre tip and iii) Limited spatial resolution of fibre-bundle endomicroscopes due to the spacing between the individual fibres leading to fibre-pixelation effects. Details of design and development of a high-speed dual-wavelength LS-CLE system suitable for high-resolution multiplexed imaging are presented. Dual-wavelength imaging is achieved by sequentially switching between 488 nm and 660 nm laser sources for alternate frames, avoiding spectral bleed-through, and providing an effective frame rate of 60 Hz. A combination of hand-held or robotic scanning with real-time video mosaicking, is demonstrated to enable large-area imaging while still maintaining microscopic resolution. Finally, a miniaturised piezoelectric transducer-based fibre-shifting endomicroscope is developed to enhance the resolution over conventional fibre-bundle based imaging systems. The fibre-shifting endomicroscope provides a two-fold improvement in resolution and coupled to a high-speed LS-CLE scanning system, provides real-time imaging of biological samples at 30 fps. These investigations furthered the utility and applications of the fibre-bundle based fluorescence systems for rapid imaging and diagnosis of cancer margins.Open Acces

Seventh Annual Workshop on Space Operations Applications and Research (SOAR 1993), volume 2

This document contains papers presented at the Space Operations, Applications and Research Symposium (SOAR) Symposium hosted by NASA/Johnson Space Center (JSC) and cosponsored by NASA/JSC and U.S. Air Force Materiel Command. SOAR included NASA and USAF programmatic overviews, plenary session, panel discussions, panel sessions, and exhibits. It invited technical papers in support of U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, Department of Energy, NASA, and USAF programs in the following areas: robotics and telepresence, automation and intelligent systems, human factors, life support, and space maintenance and servicing. SOAR was concerned with Government-sponsored research and development relevant to aerospace operations

Design of a robotic transcranial magnetic stimulation system

Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) is an excellent and non-invasive technique for studying the human brain. Accurate placement of the magnetic coil is required by this technique in order to induce a specific cortical activity. Currently, the coil is manually held in most of stimulation procedures, which does not achieve the precise clinical evaluation of the procedure. This thesis proposes a robotic TMS system to resolve these problems as a robot has excellent locating and holding capabilities. The proposed system can track in real-time the subject’s head position and simultaneously maintain a constant contact force between the coil and the subject’s head so that it does not need to be restrained and thus ensure the accuracy of the stimulation result. Requirements for the robotic TMS system are proposed initially base on analysis of a serial of TMS experiments on real subjects. Both hardware and software design are addressed according to these requirements in this thesis. An optical tracking system is used in the system for guiding and tracking the motion of the robot and inadvertent small movements of the subject’s head. Two methods of coordinate system registration are developed base on DH and Tsai-lenz’s method, and it is found that DH method has an improved accuracy (RMS error is 0.55mm). In addition, the contact force is controlled using a Force/Torque sensor; and a combined position and force tracking controller is applied in the system. This combined controller incorporates the position tracking and conventional gain scheduling force control algorithms to monitor both position and force in real-time. These algorithms are verified through a series of experiments. And it is found that the maximum position and force error are 3mm and 5N respectively when the subject moves at a speed of 20mm/s. Although the performance still needs to be improved to achieve a better system, the robotic system has shown the significant advantage compared with the manual TMS system. Keywords—Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, Robot arm, Medical system, Calibration, TrackingEThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo