Our project goals are to design insertable in-vivo robotic platform for single port surgery (less invasive surgery). This robotic platform is capable of bi-manual dexterous manipulation while providing stereo vision guidance. The system is also being designed for supporting several modalities of energy delivery, and sensory data collection. Figure 1 shows the current prototype of our system. The design allows this system to enter the abdominal cavity through a 15 mm trocar. When deployed, the system provides two highly dexterous arms for surgical intervention. A stereo camera module is used to automatically track instruments and for control feedback to compensate for deflection inaccuracies of the flexible continuum robot arms.

Publications

1. Bajo, A., Goldman, R. E., Wang, L., Fowler, D. and Simaan, N., "Integration and Preliminary Evaluation of an Insertable Robotic Effectors Platform for Single Port Access Surgery", 2012 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, St. Paul, MN USA, pp 3381-3387, 2012. finalist best medical robotics paper
   [Article | Presentation | DOI: 10.1109/ICRA.2012.6224986]
2. Ding, J., Xu, K., Goldman, R. E., Allen, P., Fowler, D. & Simaan, N, "Design, Simulation and Evaluation of Kinematic Alternatives for Insertable Robotic Effectors Platforms in Single Port Access Surgery", in 2010 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, pp 1053-1058. Anchorage, AK
3. Xu, K., Goldman, R. E., Ding, J., Allen, P., Fowler, D. & Simaan, N, "System Design of an Insertable Robotic Effector Platform for Single Port Access (SPA) Surgery", in 2009 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, pp 5546-5552. St. Louis, USA