A Medical Robotic Platform for Surgical and Interventional Procedures

由于机器人辅助手术的有效性，手术和介入机器人近年来受到越来越多的关注，从而减少并发症，更快的恢复和更短的住院时间。从医生的角度来看，机器人通过赋予医疗人员超人的能力来增强他们的能力，比如高运动速度和准确性，使他们能够在有限的空间内进行高精度的手术。最近的分析（路透社）还显示，2017-2023年医疗机器人行业的预期市场增长率为20.8%。因此，外科和介入机器人的研究进展对加拿大的医疗保健和日益增长的生物医学产业都具有迫在眉睫的重要性。尽管最近取得了进展，但手术和介入机器人技术提供了重要的研究机会，包括仪器和控制方法的设计，以克服小型化、安全性和适应变化条件的要求所带来的挑战。***要求的设备是七自由度医疗机器人机械手，是目前唯一获得国际认证的用于医疗研发活动和近距离工作的经济型台式机器人。由于其认证程序是国际公认的，因此大大降低了相关产品开发和许可过程的复杂性。这一优势将促进临床前测试和与行业的进一步合作。所要求模型的灵活控制架构还将简化各种传感和控制方法的快速集成，并适应不同的应用，从而增加设备的使用。***申请的机器人将使申请人的研究项目旨在为加拿大新兴的医疗机器人产业和加拿大医疗保健开发新的重要手术和介入机器人技术。申请人的研究项目将立即受益于所要求的设备，包括以下项目：(1)用于医疗干预的图像引导连续体机器人，重点是心导管插入术；(2)机器人高强度聚焦超声（HIFU）；(3)机器人手术的远程机器人平台，重点是神经外科、眼科手术和肺活检。除申请人和合作者外，他们的研究生和本科生将接受培训，操作最先进的医疗机器人系统，学习先进的机器人测量，控制和导航方法，以及医疗应用的体内实验技术。这些技能对他们的学习很重要，而且加拿大医疗保健和生物医学行业对这些技能的需求很高。除了瑞尔森大学，这台新设备将扩大iBest（生物医学工程、科学和技术研究所）和合作医院的医疗机器人研究能力。* * * * *

Surgical and interventional robotics has received an increasing attention in the recent years due to the effectiveness of robot-assisted procedures, leading to reduced complications, faster recovery and shorter hospitalization. From the physicians' perspective, robots augment the medical staff by imparting superhuman capabilities, such as high motion speed and accuracy, enabling high-precision operations in confined spaces. The recent analysis (by Reuters) also reveals an expected market growth of 20.8% for medical robotics industry during 2017-2023. Therefore, research progress in surgical and interventional robotics is of imminent importance to both healthcare and growing biomedical industry of Canada. Despite its recent progress, surgical and interventional robotics presents significant research opportunities, including design of instruments and control methods to overcome challenges due to the requirements for miniaturization, safety, and adaptation to changing conditions. *** The requested equipment, a seven degrees-of-freedom medical robotic manipulator, is the only economic desktop robot with international certification for medical research and development activities and working in a close proximity to the humans. Because its certification procedure is internationally recognized, the complexity of the development and licensing process for the related products is substantially reduced. This advantage will facilitate pre-clinical testing and further collaborations with the industry. The flexible control architecture of the requested model will also ease rapid integration of various sensing and control methods, and accommodation of different applications, leading to the increased usage of the equipment. *** The requested robot would enable research programs of the applicants aimed at developing new and important surgical and interventional robotic technologies for emerging medical robotics industry of Canada and Canadian healthcare. The research programs of the applicants that will immediately benefit from the requested equipment include projects related to: (1) image-guided continuum robots for medical interventions, with the focus on cardiac catheterization; (2) robotic high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU); and (3) telerobotic platforms for robotic surgery, focusing on neurosurgery, ocular surgery, and lung biopsy. *** Besides the applicants and collaborators, their graduate and undergraduate students will be trained to operate state-of-the-art medical robotic systems, and learn advanced robotic measurement, control, and navigation methods, and in-vivo experimentation techniques for medical applications. These skills will be important to their studies and in high-demand by Canadian healthcare and biomedical industry. In addition to Ryerson university, this new equipment will expand medical robotics research capacity of iBest (Institute for Biomedical Engineering, Science, and Technology) and partner hospitals. *****