Ulrich Seibold

Prototype of Instrument for Minimally Invasive Surgery with 6-Axis Force Sensing Capability

Minimally invasive surgery (MIS) challenges the surgeon’s skills due to his separation from the operation area which can only be reached with long instruments. To overcome these drawbacks, minimally invasive robotic surgery (MIRS) plays an important role. This paper describes the development of actuated and sensorized instruments for minimally invasive robotic surgery which help to increase the surgeon’s immersion and dexterity.

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.

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.

Prototypic Force Feedback Instrument for Minimally Invasive Robotic Surgery

In recent years the success of the daVinci robotic surgery system (Intuitive Surgical Inc., Sunnyvale, CA, USA) has demonstrated the advantages of a telerobotic approach in minimally invasive surgery (MIS). The worldwide need and acceptance of robotic assistance systems for minimally invasive surgery can be seen with more than 600 sold systems worldwide1. Still haptic feedback, important to surgeons who generally rely on the sense of touch in assessing tissue properties, is missing. This is due to the lack of suitable instruments capable of measuring the manipulation forces inside the human body on one hand and the lack of haptic displays for conveying this force information in a comprehensible way to the surgeon on the other hand. In this chapter we present a prototypic force feedback instrument as well as a surgeon workstation as part of a complete setup for minimally invasive robotic surgery (MIRS). The system serves as technology demonstrator showing the feasibility of integrating advanced manipulator technology, haptic feedback and (semi-) autonomous functionality in the context of MIRS. The system will be used to evaluate the impact and benefit of these technologies and hopefully help to improve the acceptance of advanced MIRS. A selection of surgical applications, notably suturing (anastomosis) of coronary vessels while following the motion of the beating heart (motion compensation), provide the requirements in terms of functionality and performance. In a first step, described in this chapter, components are built and the adherence to the required specifications is assured (objective performance measurement). In a future step the impact and benefit on the selected surgical tasks (subjective performance measurement) will be evaluated by defining relevant experiments and performance metrics. Over the course of the project emphasize is given to generic and modular concepts, as acceptance of MIRS technology will be improved by high usability and good integration into the clinical workflow. After a short introduction into MIS and MIRS (Section 1.1 and 1.2) the DLR scenario is introduced in Section 2 followed by a selection of related research in Section 3. Main focus lies on an instrument and a surgeon workstation providing haptic feedback, which are presented in Section 4, together with initial results. The chapter is concluded with a critical review of the contributions (Section 5) and closes with an outlook about future research (Section 6).

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.

A fiberoptic force-torque-sensor for minimally invasive robotic surgery

This document presents the design of a 6-degree of freedom fiberoptic force-torque-sensor for integration in instruments for minimally invasive robotic surgery. The measuring system based on fiber Bragg gratings as well as the calibration procedure are explained. Measurement properties of the sensor are verified in a test setup.

Aktueller Stand und Entwicklung robotergestützter Chirurgie

Unter dem Begriff Chirurgieroboter werden im Allgemeinen Systeme mit direktem interventionellen Kontakt zu Patienten zusammengefasst, nicht nur programmgesteuerte Systeme, sondern auch Telemanipulatoren. Fur nahezu alle relevanten Chirurgieszenarien sind zumindest prototypische Systeme entwickelt worden. In diesem Kapitel werden beispielhaft marktrelevante Systeme vorgestellt und ihren unterschiedlichen Anwendungsfeldern zugeordnet, insbesondere der robotergestutzten minimal invasiven Chirurgie, Assistenzsystemen zum Fuhren von Kamera und Instrumenten sowie der Orthochirurgie.