Background
Interventional robots currently exist for flexible ureteroscopy (fURS). However, force feedback and intra‐renal pressure, which are important in fURS, were rarely considered when designing these robots.
Methods
We propose a novel robotic system for fURS integrated with partial force feedback function that is the bending knob's torque feedback of the flexible ureteroscope, and intra‐renal pressure monitoring. The proposed robotic system adopts commercial haptic device to realize torque feedback. In addition, we further propose a neural network‐based method to optimize the operation of above haptic device.
Results
Experimental results show that the slave robot can capture the variation of bending conditions and feedback to the operator, and can also accurately monitor the intra‐renal pressure. Besides, the neural network‐based method shows its potential in improving the operation.
Conclusions
The results confirm the feasibility of proposed robot's functions. In vivo experiments are needed to further evaluate this system in future work.
Background: High intrarenal pressure (IRP) during flexible ureteroscopy (FURS) may lead to severe complications. Reported methods for measuring IRP are often inconvenient to use, expensive and involve instruments that occupy the narrow ureter.
Methods:We proposed an irrigation system, which can noninvasively estimate IRP based on the principle of fluid mechanics. To determine the feasibility of our system, we conducted irrigation experiments on a kidney phantom and a porcine kidney.The estimated IRPs were compared with the ground truth IRPs.Results: When no surgical instrument was inserted into the flexible ureteroscope's working channel, our system can estimate IRP with high accuracy. When a surgical instrument was inserted, our system can approximately estimate the level of IRP.Conclusions: Our proposed irrigation system can noninvasively estimate IRP, presenting a new thought for clinical practice. In future studies, in vivo experiments are needed to further validate and improve the system.
Background: Although some robotic systems have been developed to improve conventional flexible ureteroscopy (FURS), a widely used intervention in urology, these robots rarely have a comprehensive force feedback function which is important for master-slave controlled surgical robots.Methods: Here, we design and fabricate a novel FURS robot with a comprehensive force feedback function. Moreover, to realize better force feedback, a neural network-based method is also demonstrated to estimate the interactive forces between the flexible ureteroscope and the environment.
Results:We show that when teleoperating the flexible ureteroscope with our robot, the operator can accurately feel the obstruction if the interactive axial force or torque exceeds 1.2 N or 15.6 mN•m respectively. For bending movement, augmented force feedback greatly improves the accuracy of the operator's perception of obstruction.
Conclusions:The developed robotic system with force feedback is expected to improve the safety of robot-assisted FURS.
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