Florin Gîrbacia

Off-Line Programming of Industrial Robots Using Co-Located Environments

This paper presents a methodology and a prototype system for off-line programming of an industrial robot using augmented reality technology. The system allows to control a virtual model of the industrial robot co-located in the real environment, planning for collision-free paths, generate robot program and simulate the robot actions before the real robot perform the task. The advantage of this system is use of inexpensive equipment for intuitive off-line programming of an industrial robot.

Effects of Playing Mobile Games While Driving

The use of smartphones while driving is a growing phenomenon that has reached alarming proportions. Playing games is a particular type of activity performed by drivers on their smartphones and is the subject of this paper. The study that was con-ducted aimed at investigating the influence of playing games on a smartphone while driving in a virtual reality simulator. The driver’s eye glance behavior has been analyzed for twelve subjects while driving in two environments, city and country (national) road. A reference set of data obtained by driving without the gaming distraction has been used for performing a comparison and drawing conclusions. The results have indicated increased accident risks when playing games, especially caused by loss of control of the vehicle and improper lane positioning due to the driver being distracted by the game played.

Optimal Planning of Needle Insertion for Robotic-Assisted Prostate Biopsy

Robotic systems used for prostate biopsy offer important advantages compared to the manual procedures. In the robotic assisted prostate biopsy procedure, an important problem is to identify the optimal needle trajectories that allow reaching the target tissue and avoiding vital anatomical organs (major blood vessels, internal organs etc.). The paper presents an algorithm for optimal planning of the biopsy needle trajectories, based on virtual reality technologies, using as case study a novel parallel robot designed for transperineal prostate biopsy. The developed algorithm has been tested in a virtual environment for the prostate biopsy robotic-assisted procedure and results are presented.

Methodology for the Identification of Needles Trajectories in Robotic Brachytherapy Procedure Using VR Technology

Surgical robots, including those for brachytherapy procedure, require preoperative registration prior to use for needle placement procedures. Using a virtual environment for programming the needles trajectories allows a safer procedure for robotic brachytherapy, by avoiding vital structures and providing efficient penetration placement of radioactive seeds. In this paper is proposed a methodology based on Virtual Reality (VR) technologies that can be used to generate and optimize the needle trajectory in the pre-planning stage of the robotic brachytherapy procedure.

AR-Based Off-Line Programming of the RV-M1 Robot

This paper presents a prototype system for off-line programming of industrial robot RV-M1 using augmented reality technology. The system allows controlling a virtual model of the industrial robot co-located in the real environment, planning configurations, generating robot program and simulating the robot actions. The proposed architecture makes it possible to manipulate, pick or place the objects in the scene. The advantage of this system is use of inexpensive equipment for intuitive off-line programming of an industrial robot.

An Evolutionary Computational Algorithm for Trajectory Planning of an Innovative Parallel Robot for Brachytherapy

Brachytherapy (BT) is a procedure used to treat cancer by inserting needles directly into the patient’s tumour tissue in order to deliver radioactive seeds. The efficiency of this procedure is obtained by minimizing the number of inserted needles and generating safe trajectories that avoid critical areas. To increase the accuracy of needle insertion, the physician is replaced by a robot. The paper presents an evolutionary algorithm used to generate trajectories for needles inserted by an innovative BT parallel robot. Given the locations of the points representing the seeds and the 3D virtual model of the treatment area, the proposed solver allows the minimization of the number of inserted needles and the planning of needles trajectories that avoid high risk areas. The solver was validated for a complex BT liver treatment scenario.

Planning of Needle Insertion for Robotic-Assisted Prostate Biopsy in Augmented Reality Using RGB-D Camera

Augmented Reality (AR) technologies are increasingly used in many areas. There is a vast research activity within the field of AR in medical applications. In this paper, an AR system using RGB-D camera is proposed to facilitate trajectory planning for a prostate biopsy robot. The advantage of the developed AR environment consists in the possibility to generate needle trajectories using a 3D virtual model of a specific patient directly in the robot workspace. It was shown from a test case that the generated biopsy needle trajectory reaches successfully the target area.

Virtual Planning of Needle Trajectories Using a Haptic Interface for a Brachytherapy Parallel Robot: An Evaluation Study

Brachytherapy (BT) is a modality to treat cancer by inserting needles into a patient to deliver radioactive sources direct to the diseased tissue. The efficiency of the treatment is determined by the positions of the needles. A robot can be used in order to increase the precision of the needles locations. This paper presents an approach for needle trajectory planning based on isomorphic mapping from a haptic device. A virtual reality environment has been modelled containing a 3D reconstructed abdominal model of the patient. Needle insertion using the BT robot is controlled using a Force Dimension Omega haptic device. The developed software application allows the users to practice robotic needle insertion and to determine the most appropriate locations for the BT needles.

The Command of a Virtual Industrial Robot Using a Dedicated Haptic Interface

In this paper is presented a study regarding the possibilities of commandinga virtual robot using a haptic interface. In order to demonstrate the functionality of this concept, a dedicated device with 1 DOF was developed. This device consists of twin motor-gearbox able to acquire and transmit the angular data of the shaft and return a haptic feedback corresponding to the robot movement. The proposed haptic device makes it possible to command one joint of an industrial robot and can be used as an essential component for the development of an exoskeleton for human arm and is able to generate a haptic interaction for all the joints. The exoskeleton solution will allow a structural similarity between the haptic device and an articulated robot arm. The test results with haptic feedback scenarios show that the proposed system can help inexperienced users to handle robot operation and programming tasks in an intuitive way.

Long Term Use Effects of a P300-Based Spelling Application

The P300-based Brain Computer Interfaces (BCIs) are widely used for communication purposes and proven to be fast and reliable. The present study aimed to identify the effects of a long term use of a P300-based spelling application for clinical healthy subjects under two display cases represented by a computer monitor and a head-mounted display (HMD). The typical 6 × 6 row-column spelling application was used by 7 participants under 12 recording sessions for both display methods. The results of the experiment showed that over time there is a statistical significant difference for the average accuracy rates for each display method. The average classification accuracies improved overall by a maximum of 21.43% for monitor display and 25.72% for HMD. However, the results of the experiment demonstrated that no statistical significant interaction existed between the two display methods.