Conditions for reliable grip force and jaw angle estimation of da Vinci surgical tools

Vision-Based Suture Tensile Force Estimation in Robotic Surgery

“…As a result, our deep learning network can estimate the tensile force of sutures in soft objects under the conditions shown from untrained views. In previous studies, a force sensor was used to measure the interaction forces [8][9][10][11]; however, such methods suffer from numerous constraints such as cost, biocompatibility, sterilization, and miniaturization. Moreover, in previous studies using available information from models of the surgical tool and motor devices [13,14], the parameter values of the surgical tool need to be accurately known, and a precise accurate estimation is difficult because the motor is placed behind a trocar.…”

“…This provides the most intuitive solution, but comes with numerous constraints such as cost, biocompatibility, sterilization, and miniaturization. For example, the most commonly used method for sterilization is an autoclave, which destroys electronic devices owing to high temperature, pressure, and humidity [10]. Devices [11,12] using fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) to measure the interaction forces can endure hightemperature sterilization, although the optical fiber used by FBG is less durable and has mechanical limits under complex motions.…”

Force sensing in robot-assisted keyhole endoscopy: A systematic survey

“…Sensorless refers to the case where the sensors used for force estimation are already inherent in the surgical robot (Stephens et al, 2019). In model-based approaches, the sensors are the encoders and the motor current measurements.…”

“…In teleoperated RMIS, the surgical instrument is controlled by a robotic manipulator and operated by a remote surgeon. The robotic operation restores handeye coordination (Aviles et al, 2015a) and innovations in tool design improve dexterity leading to improved ergonomics that reduce surgeon fatigue Stephens et al, 2019). The enhanced 3D vision with which robotic systems are provided and not used in laparoscopic or manual surgery, automatic movement transformations, fine motions, filtering of physiological hand tremor and motion scaling lead to improved surgery precision (Sang et al, 2017).…”

“…More experienced surgeons learn to infer force information from visual cues such as the tissue and instrument deformations and the stretch in sutures (Aviles et al, 2017). In addition, force information can be used to automate surgical robot tasks in dynamic and unstructured environments (Kuang et al, 2020), to identify tissues in real time, to create tissue-realistic models and simulators for training (Stephens et al, 2019), and to perform surgical skills assessment (Soltani-Zarrin et al, 2018).…”