The rise of service robotics: Navigation in medical and mobile applications

obotics is gradually becoming transformational, effecting various aspects of human life. One of the key enabling technologies that allowed service robots to leave the factory and automation application domain is localization. Spatial awareness provided by sensors, navigation and positi oning systems made it possible to use robots in the dynamically changing human environment. This talk overviews the recent development that lead to flexible service robots all around us, and focuses on two particular domains, where Óbuda University has a strong history to build on, image-guided navigation for mobile application and for medical robots

From Concept to Market: Surgical Robot Development

Surgical robotics and supporting technologies have really become a prime example of modern applied information technology infiltrating our everyday lives. The development of these systems spans across four decades, and only the last few years brought the market value and saw the rising customer base imagined already by the early developers. This chapter guides through the historical development of the most important systems, and provide references and lessons learnt for current engineers facing similar challenges. A special emphasis is put on system validation, assessment and clearance, as the most commonly cited barrier hindering the wider deployment of a system

Application of Luenberger's observer in RFPT-based adaptive control - 2014; A case study

The traditional way of thinking in controller design prefers the use of the “state space representation” introduced by R. Kalman in the early sixties of the past century. This system description is in close relationship with linear or at least partly linear system in which the linear part can be used in forming a quadratic Lyapunov function in the stability proof. In the standard model of such systems it is assumed that the state of the system is not directly observable, only certain linear functions of the state variable are directly measurable. Since such approaches introduce certain feedback gains for the state variable, observers are needed that calculate the estimation of the state variable on the basis of directly measurable quantities. The Luenberger observers solve this task via introducing a differential equation for the estimated state. In order to avoid the mathematical difficulties of Lya- punov’s “direct method” the “ Robust Fixed Point Transforma- tions (RFPT) ” were introduced in a novel adaptive technique that instead of the state space representation directly utilized the available approximate model of the system to estimate its “response function”. In this approach it was assumed that the system’s response is directly observable and an iterative sequence was generated by the use of “ Banach’s Fixed Point Theorem ” that converged to an appropriate deformation of the rough initial model to obtain precise trajectory tracking. In the present paper it is shown that the Luenberger observers and the RFPT-based mathod can be combined in a more con- ventional approach of the adaptive controllers that are designed on the basis of finding appropriate feedback gains. Illustrative simulation examples are presented to substantiate this statement

Robot-Assisted Minimally Invasive Surgery-Surgical Robotics in the Data Age

Telesurgical robotics, as a technical solution for robot-assisted minimally invasive surgery (RAMIS), has become the first domain within medicosurgical robotics that achieved a true global clinical adoption. Its relative success (still at a low single-digit percentile total market penetration) roots in the particular human-in-the-loop control, in which the trained surgeon is always kept responsible for the clinical outcome achieved by the robot-actuated invasive tools. Nowadays, this paradigm is challenged by the need for improved surgical performance, traceability, and safety reaching beyond the human capabilities. Partially due to the technical complexity and the financial burden, the adoption of telesurgical robotics has not reached its full potential, by far. Apart from the absolutely market-dominating da Vinci surgical system, there are already 60+ emerging RAMIS robot types, out of which 15 have already achieved some form of regulatory clearance. This article aims to connect the technological advancement with the principles of commercialization, particularly looking at engineering components that are under development and have the potential to bring significant advantages to the clinical practice. Current RAMIS robots often do not exceed the functionalities deriving from their mechatronics, due to the lack of data-driven assistance and smart human–machine collaboration. Computer assistance is gradually gaining more significance within emerging RAMIS systems. Enhanced manipulation capabilities, refined sensors, advanced vision, task-level automation, smart safety features, and data integration mark together the inception of a new era in telesurgical robotics, infiltrated by machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) solutions. Observing other domains, it is definite that a key requirement of a robust AI is the good quality data, derived from proper data acquisition and sharing to allow building solutions in real time based on ML. Emerging RAMIS technologies are reviewed both in a historical and a future perspective

Medico-surgical-rehab robots: fostering community interaction for safety, standards and regulatory issues

This workshop scope is to bring together experts in medico-surgical-rehabilitation robotics in order to discuss the ongoing issues regarding safety, to provide to the participants insight in the ongoing standardization activities, and to collect their live experience input for safety and standards, and regulatory issues, to criss cross the different point of view to produce valuable inputs of the European experts and projects for the standardization ISO working Groups. The discussion shall include the many aspects related to safety in this robotics area, the regulatory and legal aspects, the possible new approaches to risk assessment, software quality, physical and non physical interfaces, human factors, use cases. The field of medical robots including surgical and rehabilitation robotics is expanding with new market viable products implementing latest scientific results. The basic safety and essential performance requirements in this domain are referred to multiple areas: • on one side we need standards to build safe medical robot systems. This is vital because in the medical, surgical and rehabilitation field the robot is typically in direct contact with the exterior and interior of the human body and applies forces to the patient in different ways. This also implies the need for safe control systems, training issues and many other factors that can influence the overall “safety”. • on the other side the safety issues have to be weighed by the medical approach considering if the robotics technology is providing at least the same benefit for the patient as the traditional alternatives. • Multiple regulatory issues are involved that are strictly connected to the safety approach and to the technical implementation choices that are to be subsumed in the standard

Robot ontologies for sensor- and Image-guided surgery

Robots and robotics are becoming more com- plex and flexible, due to technological advancement, improved sensing capabilities and machine intelligence. Service robots target a wide range of applications, relying on advanced Human–Robot Interaction. Medical robotics is becoming a leading application area within, and the number of surgical, rehabilitation and hospital assistance robots is rising rapidly. However, the complexity of the medical environment has been a major barrier, preventing a wider use of robotic technology, thus mostly teleoperated, human-in-the-loop control solutions emerged so far. Providing smarter and better medical robots requires a systematic approach in describing and translating human processes for the robots. It is believed that ontologies can bridge human cognitive understanding and robotic reasoning (machine intelligence). Besides, ontologies serve as a tool and method to assess the added value robotic technology brings into the medical environment. The purpose of this paper is to identify relevant ontology research in medical robotics, and to review the state-of-the art. It focuses on the surgical domain, fundamental terminology and interactions are described for two example applications in neurosurgery and orthopaedics

Towards a robot task ontology standard

Ontologies serve robotics in many ways, particularly in de- scribing and driving autonomous functions. These functions are built around robot tasks. In this paper, we introduce the IEEE Robot Task Representation Study Group, including its work plan, initial development efforts, and proposed use cases. This effort aims to develop a standard that provides a comprehensive on- tology encompassing robot task structures and reasoning across robotic domains, addressing both the relationships between tasks and platforms and the relationships between tasks and users. Its goal is to develop a knowledge representation that addresses task structure, with decomposition into subclasses, categories, and/or relations. It includes attributes, both common across tasks and specific to particular tasks and task types

Defining positioning in a core ontology for robotics

Unambiguous definition of spatial position and orientation has crucial importance for robotics. In this paper we propose an ontology about positioning. It is part of a more extensive core ontology being developed by the IEEE RAS Working Group on ontologies for robotics and automation. The core ontology should provide a common ground for further ontology development in the field. We give a brief overview of concepts in the core ontology and then describe an integrated approach for representing quantitative and qualitative position information.3-7 November 201

Space Science Opportunities Augmented by Exploration Telepresence

Since the end of the Apollo missions to the lunar surface in December 1972, humanity has exclusively conducted scientific studies on distant planetary surfaces using teleprogrammed robots. Operations and science return for all of these missions are constrained by two issues related to the great distances between terrestrial scientists and their exploration targets: high communication latencies and limited data bandwidth. Despite the proven successes of in-situ science being conducted using teleprogrammed robotic assets such as Spirit, Opportunity, and Curiosity rovers on the surface of Mars, future planetary field research may substantially overcome latency and bandwidth constraints by employing a variety of alternative strategies that could involve: 1) placing scientists/astronauts directly on planetary surfaces, as was done in the Apollo era; 2) developing fully autonomous robotic systems capable of conducting in-situ field science research; or 3) teleoperation of robotic assets by humans sufficiently proximal to the exploration targets to drastically reduce latencies and significantly increase bandwidth, thereby achieving effective human telepresence. This third strategy has been the focus of experts in telerobotics, telepresence, planetary science, and human spaceflight during two workshops held from October 3–7, 2016, and July 7–13, 2017, at the Keck Institute for Space Studies (KISS). Based on findings from these workshops, this document describes the conceptual and practical foundations of low-latency telepresence (LLT), opportunities for using derivative approaches for scientific exploration of planetary surfaces, and circumstances under which employing telepresence would be especially productive for planetary science. An important finding of these workshops is the conclusion that there has been limited study of the advantages of planetary science via LLT. A major recommendation from these workshops is that space agencies such as NASA should substantially increase science return with greater investments in this promising strategy for human conduct at distant exploration sites