Robotic surgery

A wide variety of robotic devices play important roles in manufacturing.  Robotic devices for surgical use are in many respects similar to those used in industry.  There are important differences.  Clinical applications require very high degrees of reliability and fault tolerance.   Sterility must be maintained. Furthermore, because humans are all different, robotic surgery systems must deal with very large amounts of variability from one operation to the next.  At present, these requirements mean that a human surgeon must be involved, at least as supervisor, in any robotic surgery.

From a control viewpoint the robotic surgery devices can be grouped into 3 broad categories.  There are devices that operate under the tight supervision of a surgeon.  A widely used example is ROBODOC which has been used for 24,000 joint procedures worldwide.  There are devices that are teleoperated or directly controlled by one or more surgeons.  The da Vinci Surgical System is a good example.  It is now used in over 50,000 of the 75,000 radical prostatectomies.  There are devices that are cooperatively controlled by a surgeon and a computer.  An example is the Steady Hand system under development at Johns Hopkins.  Its main intended uses are in retinal and microsurgery. Both the da Vinci and Steady Hand systems are examples of SCAS.

Robotic surgery systems typically use some sort of imaging technology to provide visual feedback to the controllers (surgeon and computer).  There is a great deal of variability in the actuators, in the mechanical configuration, and in the control scheme.  There is a large amount of research being done to improve the existing surgical robotic devices and to create new ones.  The development of better controls is an important component of this work.