View article

Recent advances in teleoperation-based robotic-assisted Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS) have made significant inroads in clinical adoption. However, such master-slave surgical systems create a physical separation between the surgeon and the patient. The concept of Active Constraints (ACs) provides guidance and sensory information to surgical robot operators in a form of haptic, visual or audible cues. This work proposes a novel ACs approach to avoid surgical tool-clashing and collision of the tool-shaft with delicate anatomy using elasto-plastic frictional force control. The presented framework is designed to reduce the occurence of direct coupling during electrocautery and to protect high-risk regions in Minimally Invasive Partial Nephrectomy (MIPN). Moreover, we combine aforementioned ACs methods and propose a solution when simultaneous penetration of both constraints occurs. The proposed …