II New: A Network of Open Experimental Testbeds for Surgical Robotics Research

虽然美国加州和东海岸等地区在每个人口中心附近都有主要的医疗中心，但在许多地区，即使在发达国家，患者人口分布广泛，获得先进医疗服务存在重大障碍。大规模自然灾害的受害者和战场上的伤亡人员也缺乏最先进的护理。远程手术有可能满足这些需求。人们对智能远程手术的计算研究越来越感兴趣。今天的远程手术系统没有与医学成像集成，也没有智能功能来辅助外科医生。该项目正在构建七个远程操作手术机器人和外科手术接口系统，这些系统强大而精确，足以支持七所主要研究型大学对先进机器人手术技术的研究。华盛顿大学和加州大学圣克鲁斯分校正在制造这7个机器人，并将把它们分发给哈佛大学、约翰霍普金斯大学、加州大学内布拉斯加大学伯克利和加州大学洛杉矶分校。完成后，七个研究实验室机器人将联网在一起，以共享软件，互操作性和在线远程手术实验。该项目的结果将使研究人员网络能够原型化先进的外科机器人技术，并在包括适当的动物手术在内的现实环境中对其进行评估。除了新的、侵入性更小的治疗方法外，这种技术还可以为美国和发展中国家的偏远地区提供更容易获得治疗的途径。七个合作实验室和外部合作伙伴将能够互联他们的系统，共享软件模块，并相互复制实验。

While areas of the US such as California and the East coast have majormedical centers near every population center, there are many areas,even in developed countries, with a widely dispersed patientpopulation with significant obstacles to advanced medical care.Victims of large scale natural disasters and battlefield casualtiesalso lack state of the art care. Telesurgery could potentially meetthese needs. There is a growing interest in computational research onintelligent telesurgery. Today's telesurgery systems do not integratewith medical imaging or have intelligent functions to assist thesurgeon. This project is building seven teleoperated surgical robotand surgeon-interface systems powerful and precise enough to supportresearch on advanced robotic surgery techniques at seven majorresearch universities. University of Washington and University ofCalifornia Santa Cruz are building the seven robots and willdistribute them to Harvard, Johns Hopkins, University of Nebraska,U.C. Berkeley, and UCLA. When completed, the seven research labrobots will be networked together for sharing of software,interoperability, and on-line telesurgery experiments.ImpactThe results of this project will enable a network of researchers toprototype advanced surgical robotics techniques, and evaluate them inrealistic contexts including appropriate animal procedures. Besidesnew and less invasive cures, such a technology can provide easieraccess to care in remote parts of the US, and the developing world. The seven cooperating labs, and external partners will be able tointerconnect their systems, share modules of software, and replicateeach others experiments.