27 accepted papers
The rise of robot-assisted surgery and vision language-action models has accelerated progress in autonomous surgical policies and efficient assessment strategies. However, evaluating these policies directly on physical robotic platforms such as the da Vinci Research Kit (dVRK) remains hindered by hi
Magnetic actuation enables surgical robots to navigate complex anatomical pathways while reducing tissue trauma and improving surgical precision. However, clinical deployment is limited by the challenges of controlling such systems under fluoroscopic imaging, which provides low framerate and noisy p…
Catheter-based interventions are widely used for the diagnosis and treatment of cardiac diseases. Recently, robotic catheters have attracted attention for their ability to improve precision and stability over conventional manual approaches. However, accurate modeling and control of soft robotic cath…
Surgical automation requires precise guidance and understanding of the scene. Current methods in the literature rely on bulky depth cameras to create maps of the anatomy; however, this does not translate well to space-limited clinical applications. Monocular cameras are small and allow minimally inv
Femoral artery access is essential for numerous clinical procedures, including diagnostic angiography, therapeutic catheterization, and emergency interventions. Despite its critical role, successful vascular access remains challenging due to anatomical variability, overlying adipose tissue, and the
Imitation learning (IL) has shown immense promise in enabling autonomous dexterous manipulations, including in learning surgical tasks. To fully unlock the potential of IL for surgery, access to clinical datasets is needed, which unfortunately lack the kinematic data required for current IL approach
Automating surgical systems enhances precision and safety while reducing human involvement in high-risk environments. A major challenge in automating surgical procedures like suturing is accurately modeling the suture thread, a highly flexible and compliant component. Existing models either lack the
Robotic suturing is a prototypical long-horizon dexterous manipulation task, requiring coordinated needle grasping, precise tissue penetration, and secure knot tying. Despite numerous efforts toward end-to-end autonomy, a fully autonomous suturing pipeline has yet to be demonstrated on physical hard…
Electrosurgery is a surgical technique that can improve tissue cutting by reducing cutting force and bleeding. However, electrosurgery adds a risk of thermal injury to surrounding tissue. Expert surgeons estimate desirable cutting velocities based on experience but have no quantifiable reference to
Head and neck cancers are the seventh most common cancers worldwide, with squamous cell carcinoma being the most prevalent histologic subtype. Surgical resection is a primary treatment modality for many patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma, and accurately identifying tumor boundaries
Percutaneous needle insertions are commonly performed for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes as an effective alternative to more invasive surgical procedures. However, the outcome of needle-based approaches relies heavily on the accuracy of needle placement, which remains a challenge even with robo…
In soft tissue surgeries, such as tumor resections, achieving precision is of utmost importance. Surgeons conventionally achieve this precision through intraoperative adjustments to the cutting plan, responding to deformations from tool-tissue interactions. This study examines the integration of phy…
The evolution of magnetically actuated millirobots gives rise to unique teleoperation challenges due to their non-traditional kinematic and dynamic architectures, as well as their frequent use of suboptimal imaging modalities. Recent investigations into haptic interfaces for millirobots have shown p
Recent advances in robot-assisted surgery have resulted in progressively more precise, efficient, and minimally invasive procedures, sparking a new era of robotic surgical intervention. This enables doctors, in collaborative interaction with robots, to perform traditional or minimally invasive surge…
We explore whether surgical manipulation tasks can be learned on the da Vinci robot via imitation learning. However, the da Vinci system presents unique challenges which hinder straight-forward implementation of imitation learning. Notably, its forward kinematics is inconsistent due to imprecise joi…
To track tumors during surgery, information from preoperative CT scans is used to determine their position. However, as the surgeon operates, the tumor may be deformed which presents a major hurdle for accurately resecting the tumor, and can lead to surgical inaccuracy, increased operation time, and…
Autonomous robotic suturing has the potential to improve surgical outcomes compared to manual operations due to better accuracy and consistency of suture placement. In this letter, we develop an autonomous system with model-based planning and markerless tissue tracking techniques for autonomous vagi
This paper describes a novel tissue positioning system with an integrated suturing robot and demonstrates its ability to perform semi-automatic anastomoses of synthetic blood vessels. We began with a finite element analysis-based design consideration for achieving adequate grasping of blood vessels…
This article introduces a novel suture managing device (SMD) and new suture management controller to enable single-arm suture management during autonomous suturing with the Smart Tissue Autonomous Robot (STAR). The primary function of the SMD is to tension and manage the suture thread, a task that w…
Magnetic actuation holds promise for wirelessly controlling small, magnetic surgical tools and may enable the next generation of ultra minimally invasive surgical robotic systems. Precise torque and force exertion are required for safe surgical operations and accurate state control. Dipole field est
Autonomous robotic suturing has the potential to improve surgery outcomes by leveraging accuracy, repeatability, and consistency compared to manual operations. However, achieving full autonomy in complex surgical environments is not practical and human supervision is required to guarantee safety. In…
Real-time visual localization of needles is necessary for various surgical applications, including surgical automation and visual feedback. In this study we investigate localization and autonomous robotic control of needles in the context of our magneto-suturing system. Our system holds the potentia…
This paper proposes a magnetic needle steering controller to manipulate mesoscale magnetic suture needles for executing planned suturing motion. This is an initial step towards our research objective: enabling autonomous control of magnetic suture needles for suturing tasks in minimally invasive sur…
This paper reports a robotic laparoscopic surgery system performing electro-surgery on porcine cadaver kidney, and evaluates its accuracy in an open loop control scheme to conduct targeting and cutting tasks guided by a novel 3D endoscope. We describe the design and integration of the novel laparosc…
This paper reports a robotic laparoscopic surgery system performing electro-surgery on porcine cadaver kidney, and evaluates its accuracy in an open loop control scheme to conduct targeting and cutting tasks guided by a novel 3D endoscope. We describe the design and integration of the novel laparosc
This paper specifies a surgical robot performing semi-autonomous electrosurgery for tumor resection and evaluates its accuracy using a visual servoing paradigm. We describe the design and integration of a novel, multi-degree of freedom electrosurgical tool for the smart tissue autonomous robot (STAR…
Three-dimensional sensing of changing surgical scenes would improve the function of surgical robots. This paper explores the requirements and utility of a new type of depth sensor, the plenoptic camera, for surgical robots. We present a metric calibration procedure for the plenoptic camera and the r