Tool centered architecture for computer integrated surgery (CIS)

Today, surgical robot systems are huge and expensive. This is at least in part due to the monolithic architecture of such systems. Robot arm (manipulator) and the surgical tool - in this context we speak of the end effector - are considered as one tool, as well mechanically as from the software side. But only if one can separate robot and surgical tool and reuse the robot in other interventions with other end effectors, one can take it as the "automatically controlled, reprogrammable multipurpose manipulator" as it is defined by ANSI, RIA and ISO.This article describes our architecture that takes the surgical instrument as the central component and that all the other devices or modules can easily connect to in order to form a system for computer integrated surgery (CIS). The article motivates and describes this architecture and explains an example implementation

Cooperation between Human Beings and Robot Systems in an Industrial Environment

In this paper an new intelligent robot control scheme is presented which enables a cooperative work of humans and robots through direct contact interaction in a partially known environment. Because of the high flexibility and adaptability, the human-robot cooperation is expected to have a wide range of applications in uncertain environments, not only in future construction and manufacturing industries but also in service branches. A multi-agent control architecture gives an appropriate frame for the flexibility of the human-robot-team. Robots are considered as intelligent autonomous assistants of humans which can mutually interact on a symbolic level and a physical level. This interaction is achieved through the exchange of information between humans and robots, the interpretation of the transmitted information, the coordination of the activities and the cooperation between independent system components

Sensor-Based Controlling of the Objects' Pose for Multifinger Grippers

In the field of research and development of grippers in object-handling applications, many research results in improving grippers' performances have been achieved, and many kinds of multifinger grippers have been developed. By using multifinger grippers, it is possible to grasp different objects of different shapes without changing grippers; and most importantly, it can manipulate the grasped object in the hand, under the condition that the object is controlled in real-time. Therfore, an object-pose controller with feedback from an object-pose sensor is presented in this paper