Abstract-Robotic systems have been introduced in surgery to increase the intervention accuracy. In this framework, the ROBOCAST system is an optically controlled multi-robot chain aimed at enhancing the accuracy of surgical probe insertion during keyhole neurosurgery procedures. The system is composed by three robots, connected as a multiple kinematic chain (serial, parallel and linear) totaling 13 degrees of freedom (DoFs) and is it is used to automatically align the probe onto the desired trajectory.This paper presents an iterative approach for aligning the surgical probe with the planned target pose, reducing both the translation and the rotation errors. An experimental protocol was designed, in order to assess the system performances in terms of residual targeting errors and convergence ratio.The proposed targeting procedures allows obtaining (0.06 ± 0.02) mm and (0.8 ± 0.2) × 10 −3 rad as residual median errors, thus satisfying the operational requirements (1 mm). The performances proved to be independent upon the robots calibration accuracy.
Robotics has recently been introduced in surgery to improve intervention accuracy, to reduce invasiveness and to allow new surgical procedures. In this framework, the ROBOCAST system is an optically surveyed multi-robot chain aimed at enhancing the accuracy of surgical probe insertion during keyhole neurosurgery procedures. The system encompasses three robots, connected as a multiple kinematic chain (serial and parallel), totalling 13 degrees of freedom, and it is used to automatically align the probe onto a desired planned trajectory. The probe is then inserted in the brain, towards the planned target, by means of a haptic interface. This paper presents a new iterative targeting approach to be used in surgical robotic navigation, where the multi-robot chain is used to align the surgical probe to the planned pose, and an external sensor is used to decrease the alignment errors. The iterative targeting was tested in an operating room environment using a skull phantom, and the targets were selected on magnetic resonance images. The proposed targeting procedure allows about 0.3 mm to be obtained as the residual median Euclidean distance between the planned and the desired targets, thus satisfying the surgical accuracy requirements (1 mm), due to the resolution of the diffused medical images. The performances proved to be independent of the robot optical sensor calibration accuracy.
Purpose
: In this paper a new, easy‐to‐manufacture and easy‐to‐use ultrasound (US) probe calibration phantom for 3D freehand scanning is presented and evaluated, together with a new method for achieving an accurate and user‐robust calibration using virtual plane.
Methods
: The phantom allows the optically tracked US probe to perform two rotations and two translations while keeping the image of a tensioned wire in the image plane. This approach allows obtaining a sharp image of the wire independently from the probe pose. The virtual plane allows the calibration algorithm to converge minimizing the required number of US probe tracked poses. The US image and position data are synchronized via a CORBA interface, created within the Image Guided Surgery Toolkit (IGSTK) framework. The calibration algorithm and the calibration protocol were evaluated in a set of experiments carried out by different test‐users.
Results
: The calibration method proved to be accurate and precise: 3D point reconstruction accuracy resulted 0.2 mm as mean value, while the precision was 0.4 mm as standard deviation.
Conclusions
: The technique showed to be suitable for medical applications from morphological diagnosis to intraoperative surgical planning adaption.
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