Tele-micro-surgery system with intelligent user interface

Abstract

This paper describes a master-slave type telemicro-surgical system with an intelligent user interface. To enhance the accuracy and the rigidity of the slave-manipulator, multi-circular guides were adopted for the rotational degrees of freedom. To increase the operability of the system, an "antishadow" technique was used and the 3D relative information was presented on a 2D display. Furthermore, the anti-shadow was processed using a real-time tracking vision system to guide the slavemanipulator to the target position automatically. It took approximately 25 minutes to suture a 1 inm diameter artificial micro-blood-vessel using t,he system. The carotid artery of a rat with a diameter of 0.3mm was also successfully sutured.

The Must-Have in Robotic Heart Surgery: Haptic Feedback

“…This does not only minimize the collateral surgical trauma of an access incision but results also in quicker recovery. In heart surgery the introduction of endoscopic techniques were promising, but not satisfying like the application of robots in other surgical disciplines (Bholat et al, 1999;Gutt et al, 2004;Mitsuishi et al, 2000). Complex cardiac surgery had to be performed by long instruments without tremor filter or adequate freedom of movement, so satisfactory results were missing.…”

Evaluation of haptic in robotic heart surgery

“…One sophisticated telemanipulating system is the da VinciR workstation (Intuitive SurgicalR) [3], which provides full manipulability like the human wrist, a stereoscopic view and a tremor filter but no force feedback for the surgeon. We provide a robotic scenario, which offers the surgeon an impression very similar to common and open procedures with high immersion [4]. It enables the heart surgeon to feel for arteriosclerosis in coronary vessels, to tie surgical knots with delicate suture material and to feel the break of suture material.…”

Navigation and robots

“…There is a great deal of talk about minimally invasive surgery nowadays, especially in the orthopaedic field; however, "minimally invasive" does not always mean minimal damage [6][7][8]. It often only means a smaller incision of the skin, which reduces the surgeon's view and increases the possibility of damage to the organs beneath which are involved in the surgery, by reducing the precision of the instruments introduced ("keyhole surgery").…”