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(RL)，在过去五年里在加拿大、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度和灵活性，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(抓手、剪刀、针夹和腹腔镜相机)通过8至12 mm的切口插入患者的腹部。在RL手术期间，控制器不断地将来自远程控制控制台(外科医生的控制台)的运动命令传递给手术机器人。与此同时，腹腔镜摄像头将来自患者腹部内部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获得视觉效果，而操纵台远离手术台，因此外科医生不一定知道机器人在患者身体外的形状。因此，机器人之间存在很大的碰撞风险，这可能导致患者无法恢复的伤害或对昂贵的机器人造成严重损害。为了减少手术机器人之间的碰撞风险，这项研究的研究人员与Kinova(工业合作伙伴)联手开发和测试了一种用于RL手术的新颖、快速和自主的碰撞避免技术。研究人员已经与生物医学、机器人学、外科手术和软件专业知识形成了一个科学网络，以消除合作伙伴的手术机器人的这种安全担忧。作为一项额外的安全功能，他们正在开发一种强大的触觉反馈技术，将手术期间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，将是世界上第一个提供具有自主避碰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，这项技术将带来更安全的手术机器人，这些机器人需要较短的集成时间进行RL手术，并最终促进加拿大人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.