Enrique Bauzano

Three-layer control for active wrists in robotized laparoscopic surgery

This paper is focused on the motion control problem for a laparoscopic surgery robot assistant with an actuated wrist. These assistants may apply non-desired efforts to the patient abdomen. Therefore, this article proposes a control methodology based on three feedback levels, which have been defined as layers. These layers control different aspects of the endoscope movement. A low level assures the dynamic of the robot assistant is performed accordingly. The mid level emulates a passive wrist behavior to avoid any efforts over the abdomen. An external high level deals with the global movement planning. This architecture also makes easier to analyze the stability of the whole system. Finally, a real in-vitro experiment has been implemented with an industrial robot in order to contrast the validity of this article procedure.

A minimally invasive surgery robotic assistant for HALS-SILS techniques

This paper is focused in the design and implementation of a robotic surgical motion controller. The proposed control scheme addresses the issues related to the application of a robot assistant in novel surgical scenario, which combines hand assisted laparoscopic surgery (HALS) with the single incision laparoscopic surgery (SILS) techniques. It is designed for collaborating with the surgeon in a natural way, by performing autonomous movements, in order to assist the surgeon during a surgical maneuver. In this way, it is implemented a hierarchical architecture which includes an upper auto-guide velocity planner connected to a low-level force feedback controller. The first one, based on a behavior approach, computes a collision free trajectory of the surgical instrument tip, held by the robot, for reaching a goal location inside of the abdominal cavity. On the other hand, the force feedback controller uses this trajectory for performing the instrument displacement by taking into account the holonomic movement constraints introduced by the fulcrum point. The aim of this controller is positioning the surgical instrument by minimizing the forces exerted over the abdominal wall due to the fulcrum location uncertainty. The overall system has been integrated in the control architecture of the surgical assistant CISOBOT, designed and developed at the University of Malaga. The whole architecture performance has been tested by means of in vitro trials.

Minimally invasive surgery maneuver recognition based on surgeon model

This paper proposes a new user interface based on a maneuver recognition system, which models the surgeon behavior. This interface includes three different modules: data acquisition and coding, training system and on-line recognition system. The aim is defined as recognizing the surgeon movements while is performing a surgical maneuver, by using a 3D surgical tool tracker. The obtained measurements are converted in to movement symbols by means of a Wavelet transform and a fuzzy clustering. These symbols are used both for training HMM and for recognizing the current maneuver. The system has been tested in some in-vitro experiments performing a fictitious surgical protocol.

Collaborative Human–Robot System for HALS Suture Procedures

Over the last years, minimally invasive surgery (MIS) has continuously improved due to new techniques and technologies. One of these novel techniques is hand-assisted laparoscopic surgery (HALS), where the surgeon inserts one hand through a small incision inside the abdominal cavity of the patient. As this kind of intervention only allows the use of one laparoscopic tool, the surgeon requires a deep collaboration with the assistant in order to coordinate their movements for performing a surgical maneuver. In this way, the replacement of a human assistant with a robot system specifically designed for HALS must include a natural human-machine interface and the capability for taking autonomous decisions. These features need the implementation of a model of the surgical protocol, a system capable of recognizing the corresponding surgical gestures made by the surgeon, and an autonomous task system that assists the surgeon without his direct intervention. This paper is focused on the design of a collaborative surgical robot that implements all the features previously described. This robot assistant has been validated by means of in vitro laparoscopic sutures on a HALS scenario with CISOBOT, a two-arm robotic platform designed and developed at the University of Malaga.

Towards a cognitive camera robotic assistant

This paper presents a cognitive architecture for a camera robotic assistant aimed at providing the proper camera view of the operating area in an autonomous way. The robotic system is composed of a miniature camera robot and an external robotic arm. The camera robot is introduced into the abdominal cavity and handled by the external robot through magnetic interaction. The cognitive architecture is provided with a long-term memory, which stores surgical knowledge, behaviors of the camera and learning mechanisms, and a short-term memory that recognizes the actual state of the task and triggers the corresponding camera behavior. To provide the proper camera view, each state of the task is characterized by a Focus of Attention (FOA), defined by an object, a position of the object in the image, and a zoom factor. The architecture also includes a learning mechanism to take into account particular preferences of surgeons concerning the viewpoint of the scene. The architecture proposed is validated through a set of in-vitro experiments.

Surgical tools pose estimation for a multimodal HMI of a surgical robotic assistant

The main objective of this paper is to minimize the occluded areas in order to recognize the navigation of the surgeons tools for a two-arm autonomous robotic system for laparoscopic procedures. This robotic assistant needs the tracking of the surgeons surgical gestures in order to recognize the current maneuver and to execute the automated tasks of the robot. The surgical tools pose estimation is carried out by a Multiple Extended Kalman Filter (MEKF), where the movement models of the surgical tools depend on the maneuver which is being developed. This information is obtained by a maneuvers recognition system which is a part of the multimodal human machine interface (HMI) of the robot. The method proposed for reducing shadows has been applied to three invitro maneuvers which appear in the majority of the surgical protocols. The experiments show the behavior of this method for different time intervals of the occlusions.

Single Incision Laparoscopic Surgery Using a Miniature Robotic System

This paper presents a robotic system aimed at solving the main drawbacks of Single Incision Laparoscopic Surgery. The system is composed of a miniature camera robot, a lighting robot to provide efficient illumination to the scene, and a robotic grasper. These devices are introduced into the abdominal cavity through the single port, and are attached to the abdominal wall by magnetic interaction. Two external robotic arms, at which end effector the magnetic holders are attached, are used to guide the internal devices along the abdominal wall. Camera and lighting robots are handled by voice commands, whereas the robotic grasper is teleoperated with a haptic device. An in-vitro experiment to compare the advantages of using this system versus a traditional procedure is developed.

Force-position control for a miniature camera robotic system for single-site surgery

This paper describes the design and implementation of a robotic vision system for single-site surgery. The system is composed of a wireless miniature camera robot with magnetic pan and tilt capabilities, and an external robotic arm to guide the camera along the abdominal wall. The camera robot is provided with a set of magnets, and a magnetic holder is attached at the end effector of the manipulator. This way, the camera robot can be displaced to obtain additional viewpoints of the abdominal cavity by displacing the external manipulator. The first prototype of the camera robot with an embedded LED lighting system is described. To properly displace the robotic arm over the abdominal wall, a hybrid force-position control has been developed, which includes a torque compensation module in order to obtain an appropriate orientation of the end effector. The contact surface has been assumed to be an elastic model, which stiffness matrix is estimated with a recurrent least squares algorithm. Finally, an in-vitro experiment to validate the control scheme proposed is presented.

Auto-guided movements on Minimally Invasive Surgery for surgeon assistance

This paper focuses on autonomous movements to aid the surgeon to perform certain tasks. Robotic assistants have solved the drawbacks of Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS) and provide additional skills to the surgeons. However, some authors argue that these systems could lengthen the operating time. The solution is the automation of certain maneuvers that help the surgeon during a surgical maneuver. This work proposes control architecture for a surgical robot capable of performing autonomous movements. In this way, a trajectory planner based on a behavior concept computes the required velocity vector of the surgical instrument hold by the robot. This planner has been implemented and tested on the control architecture of the surgical assistant CISOBOT, designed and developed at the University of Malaga.

Collaborative Robotic System for Hand-Assisted Laparoscopic Surgery

Hand-assisted laparoscopic surgery is a Minimally Invasive Surgery technique that is based on the insertion of one surgeon’s hand inside the abdominal cavity. In this scenario, a robotic assistant can properly collaborate with the surgeon, working side by side with him/her. This paper presents a robotic system for this kind of technique, based on a cognitive architecture that makes possible an efficient collaboration with the surgeon, thanks to a better understanding of the environment and the learning mechanisms included. This architecture includes a hand gesture recognition module and two different autonomous movement of the robotic arms, one for the camera motion and the other for the tool movement. All of these modules take advantage of the cognitive learning mechanisms of the architecture, fitting their behavior to the current user and procedure.