Basic description of the topic:
During the last three decades, the advancement of surgery was characterized by the spread of Robot-Assisted Minimally Invasive Surgery (RAMIS). In the new technique, interventions can be performed through small incisions, while the area of operation is viewed on endoscopic camera stream. During open surgery and traditional Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS), it is a common technique to identify lesions or tumors by palpation, since those stiffness usually different than the surrounding tissues. To date, there is no clinical RAMIS system offering haptic feedback to the surgeon. Additionally to helping the surgeon’s work, the gathered stiffness data can benefit different studies of surgical data science.
The task is to develop a palpation probe for the da Vinci Surgical System that enables stiffness analysis of tissues using palpation. The research-enhanced da Vinci Surgical System, da Vinci Research Kit (DVRK) available for the candidate in the Antal Bejczy Center for Intelligent Robotics. The low level control of the robot is supported by the modular iRob Surgical Automation Framework (irob-saf). The task includes the execution of palpation on a silicone phantom containing different stiffness regions, and the validation of the probe.
Detailed tasks:
- Literature overview in the field of RAMIS and RAMIS palpation;
- Get acquainted with ROS, the da Vinci Surgical System, the DVRK platform and irob-saf;
- Design of a palpation probe based on the methods found in the literature;
- Fabrication of the palpation probe, hardware and software integration;
- Integrating the vision system with the robot and the DVRK research platform and irob-saf;
- Execution of palpation in a phantom environment, analysis of the results and validation of the probe.
Over the course of the project, the student will get involved with the various research project of the Antal Bejczy Center for Intelligent Robotics.