NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operation (NEEMO) 12: Collaborative Accelerated Medical Technology Development

摘要

Abstract : The University of Cincinnati partnered with SRI and the University of Washington (UW) to develop and validate robotic technology that enables telesurgical and autonomous robotic therapeutics. This surgical robotics research was conducted in part in the National Undersea Research Center (NURC) Aquarius Habitat during the NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations (NEEMO) 12. Two robotic systems, SRI s M7 and the UW s RAVEN, were modified with updated hardware/software and were deployed to the habitat for evaluation. This research represents an important step in the evolution of surgical robotics from telesurgery to distributed autonomous therapeutics that includes remote supervisory-controlled, semiautonomous robotic function. This research marked the first time ever that a surgeon, remotely located from the robotic system and simulated tissue, was able to insert a needle into a blood vessel using ultrasound-image guidance. More importantly, the robotic system was able to autonomously insert a needle into a simulated blood vessel. Further distributed autonomous therapeutics research is indicated to help save the lives and limbs of our injured warfighters.