Robotic Research Platform for Image-Guided Surgery Assistance

Abstract

In the context of surgery, it is very common to face challenging scenarios during the preoperative plan implementation. The surgical technique's complexity, the human anatomical variability and the occurrence of unexpected situations generate issues for the intervention's goals achievement. To support the surgeon, robotic systems are being integrated to the operating room. However, current commercial solutions are specialized for a particular technique or medical application, being difficult to integrate with other systems. Thus, versatile and modular systems are needed to conduct several procedures and to help solving the problems that surgeons face. This article aims to describe the implementation of a robotic research platform prototype that allows novel applications in the field of image-guided surgery. In particular, this research is focused on the topics of medical image acquisition during surgery, patient registration and surgical/medical equipment operation. In this paper, we address the implementation of the general purpose teleoperation and path following modes of the platform, which constitute the base of future developments. Also, we discuss relevant aspects of the system, as well as future directions and application fields to investigate.