Abstract-Despite the fact that minimally invasive robotic surgery provides many advantages for patients, such as reduced tissue trauma and shorter hospitalization, complex tasks (e.g. tissue piercing or knot-tying) are still time-consuming, errorprone and lead to quicker fatigue of the surgeon. Automating these recurrent tasks could greatly reduce total surgery time for patients and disburden the surgeon while he can focus on higher level challenges. This work tackles the problem of autonomous tissue piercing in robot-assisted laparoscopic surgery with a circular needle and general purpose surgical instruments. To command the instruments to an incision point, the surgeon utilizes a laser pointer to indicate the stitching area. A precise positioning of the needle is obtained by means of a switching visual servoing approach and the subsequent stitch is performed in a circular motion.
In REF , a circular motion is automated for needle insertion after the surgeon has marked the insertion point with a laser-pointer.
Automation of tissue piercing using circular needles and vision guidance for computer aided laparoscopic surgery
2010 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation
2010 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation
Engineering Computer Science