Kousuke Kishi

Heartbeat synchronization for robotic cardiac surgery

Minimally invasive direct coronary artery bypass (MIDCAB) requires of surgeons precision of hand skill and mental concentration, since it needs to work on beating hearts. We propose a surgical robot system that compensates motions of organs during operations. The motion canceling robot system consists of three technologies; visual synchronization, motion synchronization and master-slave control. The visual stabilization provides the surgeon with the image of stabilized target point on the video monitor. The surgeon operates the master robot referring to the stabilized image. The motion stabilization, on the other hand, controls the slave robot being synchronized with the heart beat, which is the function of the master-slave control. Master-slave transforms the master motion and controls the slave robot. In this paper, we verify the effectiveness of the prototype system by in-vivo experiment.

Development of MR Compatible Surgical Manipulator toward a Unified Support System for Diagnosis and Treatment of Heart Disease

We propose a new concept of a unified system for supporting both surgical treatment and intrasurgical diagnosis of heart diseases, especially ischemic heart disease like myocardial infarction, under a magnetic-resonance-imaging (MRI) environment. In developing the system, we first designed and built a prototype of maneuverable manipulator as a subsystem. We then evaluated MR compatibility of the manipulator by moving its arm tip close to a phantom in the field of view of an open-configuration MR imager. No noticeable deformation, but some signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) deterioration, was observed in the MR images taken during evaluation. It is planned to combine the manipulator with other subsystems and function modules in order to construct an easy-to-use unified support system. This system will then be applied to treat a variety of diseases of organs and tissues in the human body.

A magnetic resonance compatible surgical manipulator: Part of a unified support system for the diagnosis and treatment of heart disease

A prototype of a magnetic resonance (MR)-compatible surgical manipulator was designed and evaluated. The manipulator is designed so as to fit into vertical magnetic field open-configuration MR imagers. Moreover, it is designed to work without being fixed to an MR imager, and its electrical circuits and lines of actuators and sensors are independent of the room shield so that it could be installed in various kinds of settings at many MR imager sites without any additional construction. The MR compatibility of the manipulator was evaluated: no noticeable deformation was observed in the MR images even when the manipulator was in motion. Although the signal-to-noise deterioration ratio was higher than that previously reported, the MR images were thought to be good enough for recognizing the whole structure of a targeted organ and for following the relative position of the manipulator tip with regard to the target, i.e. MR tracking.

A prototype master-slave system consisting of two MR-compatible manipulators with interchangeable surgical tools: part of a unified support system for diagnosis and treatment

A prototype master-slave system consisting of two MR-compatible manipulators with interchangeable surgical tools was designed, implemented, and evaluated. The manipulators are designed so as to fit into vertical-magnetic-field open-configuration MR imagers. They are also designed so that the surgical tool mounted at the tip of their arm is interchangeable. The MR compatibility of the manipulator including a surgical tool was evaluated by moving it close to a phantom in the field of view of an open-configuration MR imager. No noticeable deformation, but deterioration in the signal-to-noise ratio of approximately 10 percent, was observed in the MR images. Consulted clinicians then evaluated the manipulability of the master-slave system by maneuvering a pair of slave manipulators through an operation input device consisting of a pair of master manipulators. After several minutes of trial and error, they could perform each primitive motion for suturing tasks on training material mimicking human tissue.

An MR-compatible master-slave manipulator with interchangeable surgical tools.

Abstract This paper describes design, implementation and evaluation of a prototype of magnetic resonance (MR)-compatible master–slave manipulator with interchangeable surgical tools. The manipulator is designed so as to fit vertical-magnetic-field open-configuration MR imagers. Also, it is designed so that the surgical tool at the arm tip is interchangeable. We evaluated MR compatibility of the manipulator including a surgical tool by moving it close to a phantom in the field of view of an open-configuration MR imager. No noticeable deformation, but some signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) deterioration, was observed in the MR images. Consulted clinicians then evaluated its manipulability by maneuvering the master–slave manipulator system. After several-minute trial and error, they could perform each primitive motion for suturing task to training materials.