scholarly journals Fusing Dexterity and Perception for Soft Robot-Assisted Minimally Invasive Surgery: What We Learnt from STIFF-FLOP

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (14) ◽  
pp. 6586
Author(s):  
Abu Bakar Dawood ◽  
Jan Fras ◽  
Faisal Aljaber ◽  
Yoav Mintz ◽  
Alberto Arezzo ◽  
...  

In recent years we have seen tremendous progress in the development of robotic solutions for minimally invasive surgery (MIS). Indeed, a number of robot-assisted MIS systems have been developed to product level and are now well-established clinical tools; Intuitive Surgical’s very successful da Vinci Surgical System a prime example. The majority of these surgical systems are based on the traditional rigid-component robot design that was instrumental in the third industrial revolution—especially within the manufacturing sector. However, the use of this approach for surgical procedures on or around soft tissue has come under increasing criticism. The dangers of operating with a robot made from rigid components both near and within a patient are considerable. The EU project STIFF-FLOP, arguably the first large-scale research programme on soft robots for MIS, signalled the start of a concerted effort among researchers to investigate this area more comprehensively. While soft robots have many advantages over their rigid-component counterparts, among them high compliance and increased dexterity, they also bring their own specific challenges when interacting with the environment, such as the need to integrate sensors (which also need to be soft) that can determine the robot’s position and orientation (pose). In this study, the challenges of sensor integration are explored, while keeping the surgeon’s perspective at the forefront of ourdiscussion. The paper critically explores a range of methods, predominantly those developed during the EU project STIFF-FLOP, that facilitate the embedding of soft sensors into articulate soft robot structures using flexible, optics-based lightguides. We examine different optics-based approaches to pose perception in a minimally invasive surgery settings, and methods of integration are also discussed.

Author(s):  
Hang Su ◽  
Andrea Mariani ◽  
Salih Ertug Ovur ◽  
Arianna Menciassi ◽  
Giancarlo Ferrigno ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Wen Qi ◽  
Hang Su ◽  
Ke Fan ◽  
Ziyang Chen ◽  
Jiehao Li ◽  
...  

The generous application of robot-assisted minimally invasive surgery (RAMIS) promotes human-machine interaction (HMI). Identifying various behaviors of doctors can enhance the RAMIS procedure for the redundant robot. It bridges intelligent robot control and activity recognition strategies in the operating room, including hand gestures and human activities. In this paper, to enhance identification in a dynamic situation, we propose a multimodal data fusion framework to provide multiple information for accuracy enhancement. Firstly, a multi-sensors based hardware structure is designed to capture varied data from various devices, including depth camera and smartphone. Furthermore, in different surgical tasks, the robot control mechanism can shift automatically. The experimental results evaluate the efficiency of developing the multimodal framework for RAMIS by comparing it with a single sensor system. Implementing the KUKA LWR4+ in a surgical robot environment indicates that the surgical robot systems can work with medical staff in the future.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document