Design, implementation, and validation of a control framework for haptics-enabled multi-arm robot-assisted laparoscopic surgery

机器人辅助手术，特别是机器人辅助腹腔镜检查（RL），在过去五年中在加拿大，美国和欧洲获得了发展势头。RL系统简化了腹腔镜微创手术的工作流程，缩短了手术时间，提高了外科医生的精确性和灵活性，并使远程手术成为可能。RL系统在手术台周围使用多个机器人，同时将其尖端器械（抓钳、剪刀、持针器和腹腔镜摄像机）通过8至12 mm的切口插入患者的腹部。在RL手术期间，控制器将来自远程控制台（外科医生控制台）的运动命令连续中继到手术机器人。与此同时，腹腔镜摄像机将患者腹腔内的视频发送到外科医生的控制台。由于外科医生只能从腹部内部看到，并且控制台远离手术台，因此外科医生不一定知道机器人在患者体外的形状。因此，机器人之间存在碰撞的显著风险，这可能导致对患者的不可恢复的伤害或对昂贵的机器人的严重损坏。为了减轻手术机器人之间的碰撞风险，本研究的研究人员和Kinova（工业合作伙伴）联手开发和测试了一种用于RL手术的新型，快速和自主的碰撞避免技术。研究人员已经建立了一个具有生物医学、机器人技术、手术和软件专业知识的科学网络，以消除合作伙伴手术机器人的安全问题。作为额外的安全功能，他们正在开发一种强大的触觉反馈技术，以在手术过程中将即将发生碰撞的振动警报传递给外科医生的手。Kinova是北美领先的手术机器人制造商，将成为世界上第一家提供具有自主防撞功能的现成手术机器人的公司。通过合作伙伴计划的知识转化活动，这项技术将产生更安全的手术机器人，这些机器人需要较短的RL手术集成时间，并最终促进加拿大人民机器人手术的更广泛民主化。

Robot-assisted surgery, especially robot-assisted laparoscopy (RL), has gained momentum in Canada, the US, and Europe in the past five years. RL systems have simplified the workflow of laparoscopic minimally invasive surgeries, decreased time of surgery, enhanced surgeons' precision and dexterity, and made remote surgery possible. RL systems use multiple robots around the operating table while their tip instruments (graspers, scissors, needle holders, and laparoscope cameras) are inserted into the patient's abdomen through 8 to 12mm incisions. During RL surgery, a controller continuously relays motion commands from a remote-control console (surgeon's console) to the surgical robots. At the same time, the laparoscope camera sends video from inside the patient's abdomen to the surgeon's console. Since the surgeon merely has visuals from inside the abdomen and the console is away from the operating table, the surgeon is not necessarily aware of the robots' shapes outside the patient's body. Thus, there is a significant risk of collision between the robots that may result in irrecoverable injury to the patient or serious damage to the expensive robots. To alleviate the risk of collision between surgical robots, the investigators of this research and Kinova (industrial partner) have joined forces to develop and test a novel, fast, and autonomous collision avoidance technology for RL surgeries. The investigators have formed a scientific network with biomedical, robotics, surgery, and software expertise to eliminate this safety concern in the partner's surgical robots. As an additional safety feature, they are developing a robust haptic feedback technology to relay vibrational alerts about imminent collisions to the surgeon's hands during the surgery. Kinova is a leading manufacturer of surgical robots in North America and will be the first in the world to provide off-the-shelf surgical robots with autonomous collision avoidance features. With the partner's planned knowledge translation activities, this technology will result in safer surgical robots that need short integration time for RL surgeries and ultimately facilitate broader democratization of robotic surgery for Canadian people.