Gilles Duchemin

Dermarob: A safe robot for reconstructive surgery

This paper presents a novel and safe robotic system for skin harvesting, the first one in reconstructive surgery. It is intended to significantly improve the performance of surgeons who do not regularly perform this operation; the tool, called dermatome, is mounted at the tip of a dedicated robot that precisely controls the pressure on the skin and the harvesting velocity. In this paper, the harvesting task is analyzed and the safety constraints are summarized. Then, the mechanical structure and the functions of the control system are described. Finally, in vivo experimental results on pigs are reported and discussed.

SCALPP: A Safe Methodology to Robotize Skin Harvesting

This paper deals with an ongoing research program in robotized reconstructive surgery (especially for skin harvesting) with a mechanical system under force control. The constraints of the process are firstly described in terms of medical and robotic constraints. Then, we present an active mechanical structure which suits to our needs whose interesting features are a simple and closed-form solution to the Inverse Geometnc Model (IGM), the ability to handle the tool without collision and a simple mechanical design. In a third part, we present the application and the controller architecture from a working point of view and the force controller chosen. Finally general and particular safety issues for medical robots are discussed and solutions are presented to turn the application intrinsically safe.

Design and control issues for intrinsically safe medical robots

This paper focusses on two active intrinsically safe medical robots – Hippocrate and DERMAROB – designed by the LIRMM laboratory and manufactured by SINTERS. For both of them, we discuss design and control issues.

SCALPP: A 6-DOF Robot with a Non-Spherical Wrist for Surgical Applications

This paper deals with an ongoing research program in robotized reconstructive surgery. The constraints of skin harvesting are first described in terms of medical and robotics constraints. In a second part, thanks to a CAD system and a kinematic study, we analyse various mechanical structures and we show that they cannot satisfy our needs regarding singularity free motions. Finally, we propose a robot architecture — a 6 degree-of-freedom manipulator with a non-spherical wrist whose interesting features are a simple and closed-form solution to the Inverse Kinematics Model, the ability to move the tool without collision with the robot links and a simple mechanical design.