Development & Evaluation of Virtual Reality (VR) based Novel Vision System for the da Vinci Surgical Robot

Abstract Background: Robot surgery has become prevalent because of its various advantages as a progressive method based on empirical researches of conventional open surgery and minimally invasive surgery. However, the da Vinci surgical robot system, the most widely used and researched surgical robot, still requires an ergonomic improvement because of the uncomfortable posture in which it has to be operated. The stereo viewer—the current vision system of the da Vinci surgical robot—requires a user to maintain a posture wherein the user is looking down, which causes discomfort and results in musculoskeletal disorders. To overcome this limitation, a virtual reality (VR) head-mounted display (HMD) is proposed by previous researchers as an appropriate option to replace the stereo viewer, as it enables surgeons to move freely during surgery instead of having to look down on the stereo viewer. Presently, there is no direct comparison between the stereo viewer and a VR HMD by surgeons. Comparative evaluations were performed using peg transfer tasks, a questionnaire, and a NASA-Task Load Index (TLX). These were planned and performed by surgeons and novices to determine if the stereo viewer can be replaced by the VR HMD and to investigate whether the VR HMD has ergonomic.Results: Based on the results of peg transfer tasks, completion times when using VR HMD were shorter than those when using the stereo viewer. In these tasks, the participants performed more executions using the VR HMD compared to the stereo viewer. Based on the questionnaire, the participants favored the VR HMD compared to the stereo viewer, with respect to its visual and ergonomic performance. The modified NASA-TLX showed positive perceptions for the VR HMD.Conclusions: This comparative evaluation confirmed that the VR HMD can be employed as a potential alternative for the stereo viewer in a surgical robot system to achieve ergonomic improvements. The VR HMD improved the task performance of the surgical robot system, and it provided an ergonomic operation environment.

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A Deep Learning Approach to Intrinsic Force Sensing on the da Vinci Surgical Robot

2020 Fourth IEEE International Conference on Robotic Computing (IRC) ◽

10.1109/irc.2020.00011 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Nam Tran ◽

Jie Ying Wu ◽

Anton Deguet ◽

Peter Kazanzides

Keyword(s):

Deep Learning ◽

Da Vinci ◽

Surgical Robot ◽

Force Sensing ◽

Learning Approach ◽

Da Vinci Surgical Robot

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Low-cost and home-made immersive systems

International Journal of Virtual Reality ◽

10.20870/ijvr.2012.11.3.2846 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 11 (3) ◽

pp. 9-17 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Sébastien Kuntz ◽

Ján Cíger

Keyword(s):

Virtual Reality ◽

Vision System ◽

Low Cost ◽

Immersive Virtual Reality ◽

Simple Application ◽

3D Vision ◽

Head Mounted Display ◽

Good Level ◽

Application Sharing ◽

Immersive Systems

A lot of professionals or hobbyists at home would like to create their own immersive virtual reality systems for cheap and taking little space. We offer two examples of such "home-made" systems using the cheapest hardware possible while maintaining a good level of immersion: the first system is based on a projector (VRKit-Wall) and cost around 1000$, while the second system is based on a head-mounted display (VRKit-HMD) and costs between 600� and 1000�. We also propose a standardization of those systems in order to enable simple application sharing. Finally, we describe a method to calibrate the stereoscopy of a NVIDIA 3D Vision system.

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A Comparative Human-Centric Analysis of Virtual Reality and Dry Lab Training Tasks on the da Vinci Surgical Platform

Journal of Medical Robotics Research ◽

10.1142/s2424905x19420078 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 04 (03n04) ◽

pp. 1942007 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Ziheng Wang ◽

Michael Kasman ◽

Marco Martinez ◽

Robert Rege ◽

Herbert Zeh ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Virtual Reality ◽

Surgical Training ◽

Physiological Response ◽

Muscle Activation ◽

Da Vinci ◽

Clinical Care ◽

Task Type ◽

Surgical Robot ◽

Human Operator ◽

Movement Data

There is a growing, widespread trend of adopting robot-assisted minimally invasive surgery (RMIS) in clinical care. Dry lab robot training and virtual reality simulation are commonly used to train surgical residents; however, it is unclear whether both types of training are equivalent or can be interchangeable and still achieve the same results in terms of training outcomes. In this paper, we take the first step in comparing the effects of physical and simulated surgical training tasks on human operator kinematics and physiological response to provide a richer understanding of exactly how the user interacts with the actual or simulated surgical robot. Four subjects, with expertise levels ranging from novice to expert surgeon, were recruited to perform three surgical tasks — Continuous Suture, Pick and Place, Tubes, with three repetitions — on two training platforms: (1) the da Vinci Si Skills Simulator and (2) da Vinci S robot, in a randomized order. We collected physiological response and kinematic movement data through body-worn sensors for a total of 72 individual experimental trials. A range of expertise was chosen for this experiment to wash out inherent differences based on expertise and only focus on inherent differences between the virtual reality and dry lab platforms. Our results show significant differences ([Formula: see text]-[Formula: see text]) between tasks done on the simulator and surgical robot. Specifically, robotic tasks resulted in significantly higher muscle activation and path length, and significantly lower economy of volume. The individual tasks also had significant differences in various kinematic and physiological metrics, leading to significant interaction effects between the task type and training platform. These results indicate that the presence of the robotic system may make surgical training tasks more difficult for the human operator. Thus, the potentially detrimental effects of virtual reality training alone are an important topic for future investigation.

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Nasopharyngectomy with the da Vinci Surgical Robot

10.5353/th_b5541463 ◽

2015 ◽

Author(s):

King-yin, Raymond Tsang

Keyword(s):

Da Vinci ◽

Surgical Robot ◽

Da Vinci Surgical Robot

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Solving the Time-Varying Inverse Kinematics Problem for the Da Vinci Surgical Robot

Applied Sciences ◽

10.3390/app9030546 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 9 (3) ◽

pp. 546 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Long Bai ◽

Jianxing Yang ◽

Xiaohong Chen ◽

Pei Jiang ◽

Fuqiang Liu ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Inverse Kinematics ◽

Da Vinci ◽

Newton Iteration ◽

Surgical Robot ◽

Unitary Matrix ◽

Surgical Robots ◽

Unknown Variable ◽

Inverse Kinematics Problem ◽

Da Vinci Surgical Robot ◽

Order Nonlinear Equation

A dialytic-elimination and Newton-iteration based quasi-analytic inverse kinematics approach is proposed for the 6 degree of freedom (DOF) active slave manipulator in the Da Vinci surgical robot and other similar systems. First, the transformation matrix-based inverse kinematics model is derived; then, its high-dimensional nonlinear equations are transformed to a high-order nonlinear equation with only one unknown variable by using the dialytic elimination with a unitary matrix. Finally, the quasi-analytic solution is eventually obtained by the Newton iteration method. Simulations are conducted, and the result show that the proposed quasi-analytic approach has advantages in terms of accuracy (error < 0.00004 degree (or mm)), solution speed (< 20 ms) and is barely affected by the singularity during intermediate calculations, which proves that the approach meets the real-time and high-accuracy requirements of master‒slave mapping control for the Da Vinci surgical robots and other similar systems. In addition, the proposed approach can also serve as a design reference for other types of robotic arms that do not satisfy the Pieper principle.

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