An Autonomous Surgical Robot Applied in Practice

Abstract

Over the last 20 years, robotic surgery has made its mark as a precise means of tool deployment in surgical procedures. The majority of applications have focused on the control of tools on trajectories defined using pre-operative scan data. These pre-determined trajectories are appropriate where tissue movement between scanning and surgical therapy processes can be considered insignificant, or within acceptable limits. This level of assistance has its value in many procedures, however more complex tool paths and variations in strategy are required in many other procedures that will benefit from the precise nature of robotic manipulation technology. (Dario et al. 2000), (Davies 2000) are different example systems. To an extent this has been achieved by introducing the surgeon operator into the control loop, where master-slave systems have attempted to harness the decisions on interpretation of the state of tissue tool interaction, the formulation of strategy by the surgeon and the response and accuracy of the robotic device. Unfortunately there is always a dilemma associated with the perception of interaction with the tissue at the tool point. This is particularly true in minimal access procedures or in procedures requiring microscopic tool interaction, where information based on visual perception is compromised and the sense of tactile information is lost.