An Open-Source Framework for Surgical Subtask Automation

Robot-Assisted Surgery (RAS) is becoming a standard in Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS). Despite RAS’ benefits and potential, surgeons still have to perform themselves a number of monotonous and time-consuming subtasks like knot- tying or blunt dissection. Many believe that the next big step in development is the automation of such subtasks. Partial automation can reduce the cognitive load on surgeons, supporting them to pay more attention to the most critical elements of the surgical workflow. Our aim was to develop a framework to ease and fasten the automation of surgical subtasks. This framework was built alongside the da Vinci Research Kit (dVRK), while it can be ported easily onto further robotic platforms, since it is based on the Robot Operating System (ROS). The software includes both stereo vision-based and hierarchical motion planning, with a wide palette of often used surgical gestures—such as grasping, cutting or soft tissue manipulation—as building blocks to support the high-level implementation of autonomous surgical subtasks. This open-source surgical automation framework—irob-saf—is available at https://github.com/ABC-iRobotics/irob-saf

A DVRK-based Framework for Surgical Subtask Automation

Robotic assistance is becoming a standard in Minimally Invasive Surgery. Despite its clinical benefits and technical potential, surgeons still have to perform manu- ally a number of monotonous and time-consuming surgical subtasks, like knot-tying or blunt dissection. Many believe that the next bold step in the advancement of robotic surgery is the automation of such subtasks. Partial automation can reduce the cogni- tive load on surgeons, and support them in paying more attention to the critical elements of the surgical workflow. Our aim was to develop a software framework to ease and hasten the automation of surgical subtasks. This framework was built alongside the Da Vinci Research Kit (DVRK), while it can be ported onto other robotic platforms, since it is based on the Robot Operating System (ROS). The software includes both stereo vision-based and hierarchical motion planning, with a wide palette of often used surgi- cal gestures—such as grasping, cutting or soft tissue manipulation—as building blocks to support the high-level implementation of autonomous surgical subtask execution routines. This open-source surgical automation framework—named irob-saf—is available at https://github.com/ABC-iRobotics/irob-saf

Omnidirekcionális robot megvalósítása, dinamikai és mozgásszabályozási tulajdonságainak mérése

Ez a kutatás a National Instruments által forgalmazott omnidirekcionális platformok teljestő képességét foglalja össze

Visual servoing-based camera control for the da Vinci Surgical System

Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS)—which is a very beneficial technique to the patient but can be challenging to the surgeon—includes endoscopic camera handling by an assistant (traditional MIS) or a robotic arm under the control of the operator (Robot-Assisted MIS, RAMIS). Since in the case of RAMIS the endoscopic image is the sole sensory input, it is essential to keep the surgical tools in the field-of-view of the camera for patient safety reasons. Based on the endoscopic images, the movement of the endoscope holder arm can be automated by visual servoing techniques, which can reduce the risk of medical error. In this paper, we propose a marker-based visual servoing technique for automated camera positioning in the case of RAMIS. The method was validated on the research-enhanced da Vinci Surgical System. The implemented method is available at: https://github.com/ABC-iRobotics/irob-saf/tree/visual servoin

Recent trends in automating robotic surgery

Eversince computer technology entered the operating room (OR), surgery has gone through one of the greatest changes in the history of medicine, and now we are foreseeing the age of the digital OR. The range of the novel applications spans from intra-operative navigation to the development of autonomous suturing tools. More recently, after 20 years of experience with pre-programmed, image-guided and teleoperational surgical robots, a new trend is emerging: to create autonomous, or partially autonomous surgical robots. These advanced systems are intended to fit into the surgical workflow, and to help the surgeon in the least intrusive way possible. It is only the recent development of surgical-digital applications which can overcome a the barrier of the cognitive load on surgeons, to become able to completely control of the operating field. Three major trends have been identified in current products and advanced research prototypes: 1) aiming to improve camera handling 2) Sub-task automation 3) complete automation