Shared control of a medical robot with haptic guidance.
OBJECTIVE
Tele-operation of robotic surgery reduces the radiation exposure during the interventional radiological operations. However, endoscope vision without force feedback on the surgical tool increases the difficulty for precise manipulation and the risk of tissue damage. The shared control of vision and force provides a novel approach of enhanced control with haptic guidance, which could lead to subtle dexterity and better maneuvrability during MIS surgery.


METHODS
The paper provides an innovative shared control method for robotic minimally invasive surgery system, in which vision and haptic feedback are incorporated to provide guidance cues to the clinician during surgery. The incremental potential field (IPF) method is utilized to generate a guidance path based on the anatomy of tissue and surgical tool interaction. Haptic guidance is provided at the master end to assist the clinician during tele-operative surgical robotic task.


RESULTS
The approach has been validated with path following and virtual tumor targeting experiments. The experiment results demonstrate that comparing with vision only guidance, the shared control with vision and haptics improved the accuracy and efficiency of surgical robotic manipulation, where the tool-position error distance and execution time are reduced.


CONCLUSIONS
The validation experiment demonstrates that the shared control approach could help the surgical robot system provide stable assistance and precise performance to execute the designated surgical task. The methodology could also be implemented with other surgical robot with different surgical tools and applications.
Center of Robotics and Intelligent Machine, Chongqing Institute of Green and Intelligent Technology, Chinese Academy of Science, No. 266 Fangzhen Road, Beibei District, Chongqing, 400714, China. linfei_x@outlook.com.
Linfei
L
Xiong
Mechanical Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore.
Chin Boon
CB
Chng
Mechanical Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore. mpecck@nus.edu.sg.|Control and Mechatronics Laboratory, National University of Singapore, EA-04-06, 9 Engineering Drive 1, 117575, Singapore, Singapore. mpecck@nus.edu.sg.
Chee Kong
CK
Chui
Department of General Surgery, Southwest Hospital, Chongqing, China.
Peiwu
P
Yu
Center of Robotics and Intelligent Machine, Chongqing Institute of Green and Intelligent Technology, Chinese Academy of Science, No. 266 Fangzhen Road, Beibei District, Chongqing, 400714, China.
Yao
Y
Li
D003198:Computer Simulation; D056228:Feedback, Sensory; D006801:Humans; D010535:Laparoscopy; D019060:Minimally Invasive Surgical Procedures / Q000379:methods; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D065287:Robotic Surgical Procedures / Q000379:methods*; D012371:Robotics / Q000379:methods*; D013274:Stomach Neoplasms / Q000601:surgery; D055698:Touch Perception; D014584:User-Computer Interface
Anatomy-based constraint; Haptic guidance; Surgical robot; Tele-operative control