Georg Passig

DLR MiroSurge: a versatile system for research in endoscopic telesurgery.

PurposeResearch on surgical robotics demands systems for evaluating scientific approaches. Such systems can be divided into dedicated and versatile systems. Dedicated systems are designed for a single surgical task or technique, whereas versatile systems are designed to be expandable and useful in multiple surgical applications. Versatile systems are often based on industrial robots, though, and because of this, are hardly suitable for close contact with humans.MethodTo achieve a high degree of versatility the Miro robotic surgery platform (MRSP) consists of versatile components, dedicated front–ends towards surgery and configurable interfaces for the surgeon.ResultsThis paper presents MiroSurge, a configuration of the MRSP that allows for bimanual endoscopic telesurgery with force feedback.ConclusionsWhile the components of the MiroSurge system are shown to fulfil the rigid design requirements for robotic telesurgery with force feedback, the system remains versatile, which is supposed to be a key issue for the further development and optimisation.

The DLR MIRO: a versatile lightweight robot for surgical applications

Purpose – Surgical robotics can be divided into two groups: specialized and versatile systems. Versatile systems can be used in different surgical applications, control architectures and operating room set‐ups, but often still based on the adaptation of industrial robots. Space consumption, safety and adequacy of industrial robots in the unstructured and crowded environment of an operating room and in close human robot interaction are at least questionable. The purpose of this paper is to describe the DLR MIRO, a new versatile lightweight robot for surgical applications.Design/methodology/approach – The design approach of the DLR MIRO robot focuses on compact, slim and lightweight design to assist the surgeon directly at the operating table without interference. Significantly reduced accelerated masses (total weight 10 kg) enhance the safety of the system during close interaction with patient and user. Additionally, MIRO integrates torque‐sensing capabilities to enable close interaction with human beings ...

MICA - A new generation of versatile instruments in robotic surgery

Robotic surgery systems are highly complex and expensive pieces of equipment. Demands for lower cost of care can be met if these systems are employable in a flexible manner for a large variety of procedures. To protect the initial investment the capabilities of a robotic system need to be expandable as new tasks arise.

The DLR MiroSurge - A robotic system for surgery

This video presents the in-house developed DLR MiroSurge robotic system for surgery. As shown, the system is suitable for both minimally invasive and open surgery. Essential part of the system is the MIRO robot: The soft robotics feature enables intuitive interaction with the robot.

Robot Assisted Force Feedback Surgery

Minimally invasive surgery characterizes a sophisticated operation technique in which long, slender instruments are inserted into the patient through small incisions. Though providing crucial benefits compared to open surgery (i.e. reduced tissue traumatization) it is also faced with a number of disadvantages. One of the major problems is that the surgeon cannot access the operating field directly and, therefore, can neither palpate tissue nor sense forces sufficiently. Furthermore, the dexterity of the surgeon is reduced as the instruments have to be pivoted around an invariant point.

An approach to ulta-tightly coupled data fusion for handheld input devices in robotic surgery

This paper introduces an ultra-tightly coupled approach to data fusion of optical and inertial measurements. The two redundant sensor systems complement each other well, with the cameras providing absolute positions and the inertial measurements giving low latency information of derivatives. The targeted application is the tracking of handheld input devices for robotic surgery, where landmarks are not always visible to all cameras. Especially when bi-manual operation is considered, where one hand can move between the other hand and a camera, occlusions occur frequently. The ultra-tighly coupled data fusion uses 2D-camera measurements to correct pose estimations in an extended Kalman filter without an explicit 3D-reconstruction. Therefore marker measurements are used to support the pose estimation, even if the marker is only visible in one camera. Experiments were done with an inertial measurement unit and rectified stereo cameras that show the advantage of the approach for the application.

Robot assisted internal mammary artery detection for coronary revascularisation surgery

This paper presents a semi-automatic robotic system supporting a surgeon in the harvesting of the internal mammary artery (IMA) for an open chested intervention in coronary revascularisation surgery. The versatile surgical lightweight robot MIRO developed at DLR (German Aerospace Center) is used to detect and mark the path of the IMA at the inner side of the thoracic wall. The robot is equipped with a tool combining a Doppler ultrasonography (US) probe and a medical marker pen. The position of the IMA is extracted from the US-images to place the tool above the artery via visual servoing. Additionally, the robot moves the tool in direction of the artery to mark the location of the IMA on its path. To achieve an ideal contact situation for US-imaging along the whole path the contact force between tissue and probe is controlled according to force measurements based on the internal torque sensors of the robot. The evaluation of the robotic system by an animal experiment shows that the system is capable of robustly detecting the IMA.