Telesurgical Robotics and a Kinematic Perspective

Abstract

Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS) has revolutionized the world of surgery. On one hand it offered many revolutionary advantages, on the other hand it proved to be a tedious and sophisticated technique for surgeons. Telesurgical robotics came forward to assist surgeons and made surgeries even further innovative, safer and efficacious. Kinematics - a fundamental and foremost design step - acts as the lynchpin of performance of a surgical robot. It plays a decisive role and defines the capabilities and viability of a robot vis-à-vis its application. This chapter tries to understand the kinematic design approaches in practice so far and discusses their features and potential shortcomings. Some of the notable kinematic structures are explained in detail and an all-inclusive consideration to the kinematic aspects of the existing designs has been given. Based on the key challenges identified, possible solutions are suggested which is followed by future research directions and conclusion.

Key Terms in this Chapter

Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS): MIS is a surgical technique in which surgical tools are inserted inside the patient body through small holes and thus allow the surgeon to operate using the video feedback from an endoscopic camera.

Singular Configurations: Singularities are robot configurations where a manipulator loses one or more of its degrees-of-freedom and, therefore, cannot move in the corresponding direction(s).

Spatial Mechanism: Spatial mechanisms are essentially three-dimensional mechanisms such that one or more members of such a mechanism move in a plane different to others.

Workspace: Workspace or reachable space represents all those points that can be reached by the end effector of a robot.

Robot Kinematics: Robot kinematics is the study of the position and movement of multi-degree of freedom kinematic chains that form the structure of a robotic manipulator.