Mechatronic Devices for Next-Generation Minimally Invasive Surgery

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Minimally invasive procedures are performed though small incisions, typically 5-12 mm across. While benefical to patients, the restricted access introduces many challenges for clinicians. One of the major problems is the inability to manipulate and feel internal structures in the same manner that is possible for a comparable open procedure. This makes learning difficult and leads to a higher number of errors.****Over the long term, the objective of my research program is to introduce technologies that can improve the practice of minimally invasive surgery, with an eye toward enabling procedures, in whole or in part, to be performed autonomously. In working toward this goal, the short-term objectives of my work aim to improve the safety and efficacy of leading-edge minimally invasive surgical practice by addressing three complementary areas:***1. Improving the ability of surgical instruments to measure tissue characteristics and interaction forces. This includes the development of new sensors, methods for optimal sensor placement and techniques for seamlessly integrating sensors into surgical instruments. This information is critical to providing tools with "awareness" of their environment.***2. Developing techniques to use intraoperative sensory information, including video and data from sensorized instruments, to identify key anatomical features, instrument actions and surgical subtasks in real time. With the ability to determine what is happening, in the context of an overall surgical plan, it becomes possible to direct actions and mitigate errors.***3. Designing tools and control methods to realize smart surgical instruments that can react in an intelligent manner. The resulting handheld instruments and surgical robotic systems will be able to actively prevent surgical errors from occurring.***This research program builds on my previous experience with the design, development and testing of medical mechatronic devices and active vision systems. The results of the proposed research will advance the field of mechatronic systems for clinical applications. The resulting technologies are expected to be of particular significance to the Canadian health care and medical device industries, with a huge market potential. The improved sensing and manipulation capabilities afforded by this research will benefit patients and practitioners of a wide range of surgical procedures and may also be applied to devices and systems for training, diagnosis and therapy.**