ROBOTIC TELESURGERY: AN INVESTIGATION OF UTILITY, HUMAN ADAPTATION, AND PERFORMANCE

Robotic surgery is a powerful, new method for performing minimally invasive surgery (MIS). The method allows complex procedures through incisions which are 10 mm or less. Robotic surgery has grown rapidly because small MIS incisions result in rapid patient recovery compared to conventional methods. Although surgical robots have the potential of long distance control, insufficient data is available to determine whether long distance robotic surgery, or telesurgery, is practical. Telesurgery could provide multiple benefits, including dissemination of expertise, widespread patient care, cost savings, and improved community care. We describe a series of experiments to investigate telesurgery using a one of a kind telesurgery platform and ground- and satellite-based Internet networks. The networks provided the redundancy and quality of service that would be required for human surgery. Tolerances for performing surgical tasks over a long distance were unknown. We show that operators using the platform can complete dry lab manoeuvres with communication latencies up to 500 ms, with no appreciable increase in error rates. Such latency would be equivalent to a North American transcontinental distance, implying a wide range of telesurgical capability. The characteristics of ground- and satellite-based Internet networks for telesurgery were unavailable. We demonstrate that emulated surgery in animals can be effectively performed using either ground or satellite. The networks can reliably support surgery, and satellite-based surgery can be performed even though latency exceeds 500 ms. Further, satellite bandwidth should be above 5 Mb/s for telesurgery applications. Satellite networks could be used either for back up or primarily where a community does not have ground-based equipment. iii Methods of training operators for telesurgery had not been explored. We demonstrate two methods of training for telesurgery. Operators doing dry lab surgical manoeuvres performed equally well either with sequentially increasing latency or with full latency only, suggesting that both methods of training may be effective. Telesurgery can become a practical method of treatment. Within a few years, more widespread platforms and telecommunications may exist to launch everyday telesurgery procedures

Touch and deformation perception of soft manipulators with capacitive e-skins and deep learning

Tactile sensing in soft robots remains particularly challenging because of the coupling between contact and deformation information which the sensor is subject to during actuation and interaction with the environment. This often results in severe interference and makes disentangling tactile sensing and geometric deformation difficult. To address this problem, this paper proposes a soft capacitive e-skin with a sparse electrode distribution and deep learning for information decoupling. Our approach successfully separates tactile sensing from geometric deformation, enabling touch recognition on a soft pneumatic actuator subject to both internal (actuation) and external (manual handling) forces. Using a multi-layer perceptron, the proposed e-skin achieves 99.88\% accuracy in touch recognition across a range of deformations. When complemented with prior knowledge, a transformer-based architecture effectively tracks the deformation of the soft actuator. The average distance error in positional reconstruction of the manipulator is as low as 2.905$\pm$2.207 mm, even under operative conditions with different inflation states and physical contacts which lead to additional signal variations and consequently interfere with deformation tracking. These findings represent a tangible way forward in the development of e-skins that can endow soft robots with proprioception and exteroception

Modelling and Control Framework for Robotic Telesurgery

Abstract—Frequently encountered limitations of hardware and software systems regarding teleoperation capabilities include the incomplete modelling of robot dynamics, tool–tissue interaction, human–machine interfaces and the communication channel. Furthermore, the inherent latency of long-distance signal transmission may endanger the stability of a robot controller. All of these factors contribute to the very limited deployment of robotic telesurgery. This paper gives an overview of the challenges of establishing high fidelity telepresence systems for medical applications, and proposes development directions beyond the state of the art

Coupling vibration characteristics of a translating flexible robot manipulator with harmonic driving motions

Translating robot manipulators (TRMs) especially flexible translating robot manipulators (FTRMs) have been actively used in takeout robots, beam-type substrate transport robots and manufacturing machines and it remains that the end-effector on robot arms should have a good operating accuracy. Due to the coupling effect, such as motor parameters and mechanism inertias, the motions of the driving stage exhibits certain disturbances especially in high speeds. Considering the influence of the motion disturbances, this paper models the motions of the driving stage as harmonic driving motions and in this case the FTRM is similar to a parametrically excited system. The multiple scales method is applied to obtain the stability conditions for the motion disturbances. Based on the established coupling dynamic model, the influences of the motion disturbances on the vibration behaviors and the stability are investigated. Moreover, considering the actual motion characteristics of the driving stage with varied accelerations and velocities, the effect mechanism between the motion characteristics and motion disturbances are subsequently studied. According to this effect mechanism, the influence of the motion disturbances can be suppressed through motion optimizing, which is meaningful for motion optimizations and vibration controls of the FTRM. An ADAMS physical prototype is constructed to verify the dynamic model and theoretical analysis results, and the results have a good agreement

La cobotique

La cobotique constitue une nouvelle discipline technologique, à l’interface de la cognitique et du facteur humain, de la biomécanique et de la robotique. Ses dimensions applicatives concernent à la fois les sciences humaines, l’ergonomie et la nouvelle problématique de l’usine du futur, mais également les communications et les artefacts de compagnie. Si le progrès des robots est conçu à la mesure de son autonomie, celui des cobots est au contraire lié de manière intime au comportement de l’homme auquel il est soumis pour augmenter à la fois son comportement et sa cognition.Cobotics is a new technological discipline at the interface of cognitics and human factors, biomechanics and robotics. Its application relate to the human sciences, on one hand to ergonomics and the new issue of factory of the future, and on the other hand to communications and artefactial companions. If the progress of robots is caracterised by its autonomy, that of cobots is instead linked so intimately to human behavior for increasing its behavior and cognition

Perceiving Aperture Widths During Teleoperation

When teleoperating robots it is often difficult for operators to perceive aspects of remote environments within which they are working (Tittle, Roesler, & Woods, 2002). It is difficult to perceive the sizes of objects in remote environments and to determine if the robot can pass through apertures of various sizes (Casper & Murphy, 2003; Murphy 2004). The present experiment investigated whether remote perception could be improved by providing optic flow during robot movement or by positioning an on-board camera so that the forward portion the robot is in the camera\u27s view. Participants judges the sizes of remote apertures viewed through a camera mounted on a remote robot. The participants were divided into two different viewing conditions; those with the forward portion of the robot in view and those without any portion of the robot in view. Each participant viewed a series of 60 videos, some of which provided optic flow and some of which did not. Results indicated no differences between the flow conditions, and a small yet statistically significant difference between the viewing conditions. On average the participants judged the apertures to be larger when the robot was not in view, which could lead to operators overestimating the ability of robots to fit through small openings. The implications of these findings for the teleoperation of remote robots are discussed

Robot-assistive minimally invasive surgery:trends and future directions

The evolution of medical technologies—such as surgical devices and imaging techniques—has transformed all aspects of surgery. A key area of development is robot-assisted minimally invasive surgery (MIS). This review paper provides an overview of the evolution of robotic MIS, from its infancy to our days, and envisioned future challenges. It provides an outlook of breakthrough surgical robotic platforms, their clinical applications, and their evolution over the years. It discusses how the integration of robotic, imaging, and sensing technologies has contributed to create novel surgical platforms that can provide the surgeons with enhanced dexterity, precision, and surgical navigation while reducing the invasiveness and efficacy of the intervention. Finally, this review provides an outlook on the future of robotic MIS discussing opportunities and challenges that the scientific community will have to address in the coming decade. We hope that this review serves to provide a quick and accessible way to introduce the readers to this exciting and fast-evolving area of research, and to inspire future research in this field

Models for force control in telesurgical robot systems

Surgical robotics is one of the most rapidly developing fields within robotics. Besides general motion control issues, control engineers often find it challenging to design robotic telesurgery systems, as these have to deal with complex environmental constrains. The unique behavior of soft tissues requires special approaches in both robot control and system modeling in the case of robotic tissue manipulation. Precise control depends on the appropriate modeling of the interaction between the manipulated tissues and the instruments held by the robotic arm, frequently referred to as the tool–tissue interaction. Due to the nature of the physiological environment, the mechatronics of the systems and the time delays, it is difficult to introduce a universal model or a general modeling approach. This paper gives an overview of the emerging problems in the design and modeling of telesurgical systems, analyzing each component, and introducing the most widely employed models. The arising control problems are reviewed in the frames of master–slave type teleoperation, proposing a novel oft tissue model and providing an overview of the possible control approaches