Collaborative Robots in Surgical Research

Abstract

This work demonstrates the adaptation of an industrial robotic system to an affordable and accessible open platform for education and research through rapid prototyping techniques. The ABB YuMi collaborative robot is controlled using a virtual reality teleoperation system and adapted using a low-cost gripper extension for surgical tools. The design and assessment of three surgical tools used in two mock surgical procedures are showcased in this paper. It was found that the perpendicular scalpel tool surpassed the others for performance time. Scissors were found more effective to cut the affected tissue in the melanoma extraction task than the parallel scalpel configuration (15% of healthy tissue removed versus 42%).