Maj. (Dr.) George Kallingal showcases a robotic surgical system while Lt. Col. (Dr.) Thomas Novak, Brooke Army Medical Center’s chief of pediatric urology, looks on at San Antonio Military Medical Center in San Antonio. Photo by Robert Shields

This article was first published on IEC e-tech.

Robotic‑assisted surgery involves a surgeon using a computer‑assisted electro‑mechanical device to carry out complex and technically demanding medical procedures on a patient. The value of surgical robotic tools lies in their role as machines that extend the capabilities and precision of the surgeon, rather than replacing human skills.

Typically, a robotic surgical system includes a camera arm and multiple mechanical arms with surgical instruments attached to them. The surgeon controls the arms while seated at a computer console which is located close to the operating table and provides a high‑definition, magnified, 3‑D image of the surgical site. The surgical robot’s computer software also filters out the surgeon’s hand tremors. For robotic radiosurgery, non‑invasive technology can deliver high‑precision radiation therapy using continual image guidance technology and computer‑controlled robotic mobility.

Robotic surgical technology enables a surgeon to perform surgical movements that exceed the natural range of motion of the human hand with greater precision, combined with high definition 3‑D visualization and magnification. Smaller incisions mean smaller scars, less blood loss and reduced trauma to the tissue that is a feature of regular surgery.

The smooth operation of a surgical robot relies on its electrical and mechanical components, sensors and computer software working together in harmony combined with the skill and experience of the surgeon in charge.

IEC Standards vital as market expands

Growth in the worldwide robotic surgical systems market is being fuelled as emerging competitors challenge the dominance of established players by offering greater affordability and technological innovation.

Global sales of surgical robotic systems are projected to reach $28.8 billion by 2020, according to a 2016 report by US research consultancy Allied Market Research (AMR). According to AMR, the increased adoption of advanced robotic surgery over conventional open surgery, a growing number of surgical procedures and the rise in gynaecological, neurological and urological disorders are the major factors that will boost market growth. As a result, the surgical robotic procedures market is estimated to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.9% during 2015‑2020, fostering the growth of the surgical robotics market, the report adds.

Gynaecology applications comprised the largest share of the surgical robotic systems market in 2014 (28%), and orthopaedic surgery, currently at 22%, is projected to be the fastest growing application segment during the forecast period. North America and Europe collectively account for around four-fifths of worldwide surgical robotic systems market revenue, but Asia-Pacific’s share is expected to grow rapidly owing to a growing awareness of robotic surgeries and increasing healthcare expenditure, AMR concluded.

Medical robotics is a relatively new domain and relies on IEC International Standards to help ensure that the design and manufacture of parts meet the strictest requirements. The SCs (Subcommittees) and WGs (Working Groups) of IEC TC 62: Electrical equipment in medical practice, have been responsible for carrying out the bulk of the medical equipment standardization work required to produce the IEC 60601 family of standards. These cover the safety requirements for ME (medical electrical) equipment and MES (medical electrical systems) in current use.

IEC SC 62A: Common aspects of electrical equipment used in medical practice, formed Joint Working Group (JWG) 9 with ISO TC 184/SC 2 in June 2011. JWG 9’s remit is to “develop general requirements and guidance related to the safety of medical electrical equipment and systems that utilize robotic technology. The work encompasses medical applications (including aids for the disabled) covering invasive and non‑invasive procedures such as surgery, rehabilitation therapy, imaging and other robots for medical diagnosis and treatment”.

More than 80 experts are currently active in SC 62A/JWG 9, reflecting the importance of standardization for the sector. The IEC is also examining the still new and rapidly evolving issue of the incorporation of higher levels of autonomy in ME equipment and MES.

Touch me, heal me

Surgical robots incorporate sensors, for example, to relay information or allow the precise application of force. Manufacturers can build more reliable, efficient and safe sensors and microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) thanks to International Standards prepared by IEC Technical Committee (TC) 47: Semiconductor devices and IEC Subcommittee (SC) 47F: Microelectromechanical systems.

New types of motors for surgical robots use ceramics and plastics rather than metal components, so robots using these materials would not be affected by machines that emit magnetic waves, such as Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scanners.

As robots become cheaper and more capable and the costs of sensors and software that heighten their capability continue to fall, new medical applications are expanding.

The SRI-led Trauma Pod, developed for DARPA as a next-generation mobile robotic surgery platform for the military. Credit: SRI International via Wikimedia Commons

Minimally invasive robot instruments can both look and feel for cancer deep within the body, using a combined ultrasound probe and pressure sensor array. The latest radiation oncology robotic surgery devices, systems and instruments manage cancer surgery through radiation excision that eliminates open cutting in the body. Meanwhile, advances in robot‑assisted hip replacement surgery assist surgeons in ensuring optimal alignment of artificial hip joints.

The next generation of robotic-assisted tools for surgeons includes advanced imaging and sensors to help doctors during operations. Researchers at Harvard are developing low‑cost, millimetre‑scale force sensors for robotic surgical tools, where size is the biggest challenge, with the aim of eventually providing surgical robots with a sense of “touch”.

Other innovations include robotic suturing, a robot‑guided laser bone‑cutting device which offers more precise cutting geometries, and miniature snake‑like robots only a few millimetres in diameter.

A team led by the Hong Kong Polytechnic University is developing what it describes as the world’s first internally motorized minimally invasive surgical robotic system, and successfully carried out trials on animals using the prototype in December 2015.

The system, called the Novel Surgical Robotic System (NSRS), can be inserted through a single, small incision or even a natural orifice (incision‑less) and expanded inside the human body to perform various surgical operations. The small arms and micro‑motors that control them are then able to work on the body without requiring a large external machine to drive the tools.

The system is capable of haptic (tactile) feedback, allowing the surgeon operating it to feel the stiffness of tissues manipulated by the instruments, a feature not available on current major robotic surgical systems.

Dr Louis Phee of Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University foresees a time when customizable micro/nano self‑configurable robots will be used for screening, surgery and biopsies. Nano‑robots are robots the size of a cell that could be introduced in blood flow to eliminate cancer cells or for tissue repair, among other uses.

Nanotechnology, the manipulation of matter on atomic and molecular scales, is a rapidly growing technology, but one that is still, to a great extent, in a developmental phase. However, it is seen as having great potential in medical applications. IEC TC 113 prepares International Standards for nanotechnology.

Dr Phee argues that “the real challenge for the future of robotics in surgery (and perhaps for surgery in general) is to go beyond the mere imitation and substitution by a robot of conventional procedures and surgical gestures, and rather to explore completely novel procedures that are possible only by means of robotic/mechatronic tools together with human surgeons.”

Robot love

Medical robots have wider applications beyond just surgery. For instance, robotic arms provide rehabilitation therapy for patients recovering from strokes and other neurological disorders. Autonomous mobile robot fleets can serve as medical workhorses, travelling for miles along hospital corridors carrying medical supplies, patients’ meals and other goods.

With people around the world living longer, and rising healthcare costs for the elderly overtaking tax revenues in many developed countries, one solution being mooted is that “cyberconscious” robots could replace human caregivers. In this scenario, care‑giving robots would assist their elderly charges with everyday tasks and remind them to take their medication.

The latest research extends to whether robots could make stronger social and emotional connections with people. The next generation of home‑care robots, for instance, could use visual cues such as tears, audio signals such as extended silence or barely audible speech, and physiological signs such as lowered temperature and raised blood pressure to assess moods among the elderly and cheer them up during periods of unhappiness.

SRI Robotics

The project was formed in connection with the strategic collaboration between Ethicon, a Johnson & Johnson medical device company, and Verily (formerly Google Life Sciences).

SRI is licensing next-generation robotics technology to Verb Surgical that they believe will impact both the open and minimally invasive surgery markets and ultimately make the benefits of robotic surgery accessible to more patients around the world.

Several SRI ventures have transitioned robotics technology from laboratory to marketplace:

• Now publicly traded and the global leader in the field of robotic-assisted minimally invasive surgery, Intuitive Surgical is based on technology that originated at SRI.
• Redwood Robotics, a joint venture acquired by Google, was formed by SRI, Meka Robotics and Willow Garage to develop robotic arms that are simple to program, inexpensive and safe to operate near people.
• Artificial Muscle Inc., an SRI spin-off venture acquired by Parker Hannifin, designs, develops and manufactures actuators and sensors based on novel electroactive polymers.
• Grabit, Inc., another SRI venture, is commercializing our patented electroadhesion technology in new gripping products that could disrupt the world of automation and material handling.

There’s no doubt that the robotics revolution is leading to new opportunities and innovations. You can expect more exciting developments from SRI Robotics as their multidisciplinary team continues to push the boundaries of what’s possible.

Via SRI International.

The SRI-led Trauma Pod, developed for DARPA as a next-generation mobile robotic surgery platform for the military. Credit: SRI International via Wikimedia Commons.

This week, the “144” study on adverse events in robotic surgery made the rounds in media outlets such as the BBC, NBC and the MIT Tech review. An impressive group of researchers found that between January 2000 and December 2013, we have records of robotic surgical procedures killing 144 people, injuring 1,391, and involving 8,061 malfunctions – this is out of a total of more than 1.7 million procedures performed in that time period.

This is of course serious news, raises important questions, and adds to a heated conversation on the safety and effectiveness of robotic surgical procedures. A growing body of studies now argue these points (for example [1, 2, 3, 4]), and thankfully we’re starting to learn when and why this technology works or causes trouble. A lot seems to come down to how frequently a procedure is performed at a particular hospital and by a particular surgeon, for example. Hopefully this dialogue will mean safer and more effective robotic procedures as the years go on; this is generally the story with surgical technologies as they mature.

The intense focus on safety and effectiveness seems to be compromising training for new robotic surgeons.

It may also mean many fewer competent robotic surgeons, just as demand for robotic surgery soars. After two years of field research – observing close to a thousand hours of robotic and open surgery at five diverse hospitals and interviewing surgeons and residents from ten teaching hospitals around the country – I have found that the intense focus on safety and effectiveness seems to be compromising training for new robotic surgeons.  I should say from the outset that I’ve collected data only on surgery involving Intuitive’s da Vinci system, and primarily on urologic procedures. I did this to uncover best practice: the da Vinci is used far more frequently than any other robotic surgical system, and the field of urology has had – by far – the most experience with the system over the longest period of time.

Why is surgical learning compromised in surgery involving the da Vinci? Mainly because the technology allows a single surgeon to perform the bulk of each procedure. In traditional “open” surgery, senior surgeons need significant help from medical residents throughout. While I explore interesting exceptions in my research, at my sites this generally translated into a ten- to twenty-fold reduction in the time that medical residents got to spend actually doing surgery. It’s hard to hand the controls over to a rookie for long when you’re accountable for safety and quality in life-and-death work. Perhaps in response, Intuitive introduced a “driver’s ed” model that allows senior surgeons to digitally delegate surgical control to a trainee sitting in another control console. Interestingly, the presence of this model did not lead to notable increases in resident “console time” at my sites. Most often, residents watch procedures unfold on TV screens in the operating room, which likely has limited learning. As a chief of urology said to me, “Watching movies does not make you an actor.”

Most often, residents watch robotic surgical procedures unfold on TV screens in the operating room, which likely has limited learning.

This challenge adds fuel to a fire that was already burning: according to the AAMC, surgical demand is growing significantly faster than the supply of surgeons. The significant reduction in medical residents’ work weeks (from 120 hours to 80, mandated by the AAMC) has also decreased the number of surgeries that remaining medical residents get to perform. So “best practice” with the da Vinci has – on one key dimension – made it even harder for many students to get sufficient, safe, legitimate opportunities to learn how to use it.

So what are we to do about this problem? It looks as if every way forward involves challenging deeply held norms, laws and techniques related to surgical work. Change will likely require effort on multiple fronts simultaneously. It’s tempting to suggest that senior robotic surgeons should allow medical residents ten times the opportunity to struggle on their own during surgery… until you watch an expert remove potentially cancerous lymph nodes in ten minutes and on a different day watch a resident struggle to do the same in forty. Some surgeons allow this, but because of the legal, professional and quality assurance issues described above, many expert robotic surgeons won’t.

Robotic surgery will likely continue to expand in proportion to other methods, given that it allows fewer surgeons to perform surgery with less trauma to the patient.

One interesting option is to do nothing, because surgery itself is on the wane. A good number of the senior surgeons I speak with presume that new treatments – nanoparticles, nanobots and the like – will make cutting into patients less and less necessary. But many physicians and researchers expect that surgery isn’t going away for at least several decades, and that if anything, robotic surgery is going to continue to expand in proportion to other methods, given that it allows fewer surgeons to perform surgery with less trauma to the patient.

We have recently seen striking progress on automating surgical tasks in lab settings. When I ask experienced robotic surgeons about the future of their work, many of them suggest that relatively routine portions of a given procedure might soon be automated. The system might move more slowly than they would, and the surgeon might need to orient the system to the landscape inside the patient, but a semi-autonomous system would allow a single surgeon to perform several procedures simultaneously. But while this solution could address the demand side of the equation, it’s not obvious how it would help surgeons in training.

Trainees in surgery are still expected to build embodied competence through “live” work.

Simulation has already played an important role in resident education – Intuitive has partnered with a number of organizations to produce relatively advanced software simulations that help build basic surgical competence. The trouble here is that – unlike most highly skilled, collective work such as sports, music or law enforcement – trainees in surgery are still expected to build embodied competence through “live” work. In order to get time on the simulator, residents at most institutions have to get less sleep or time with family – in other words, surgical education doesn’t build in sufficient time for offline practice. This changed in the field of aviation so it seems possible in the field of surgery, despite a strong norm for learning in live procedures.

A final option is telesurgery: if surgeons could operate on patients remotely, we could more efficiently deploy surgical expertise across geographically distributed demand. The original DARPA grant that contributed to the development of the da Vinci specified remote surgery on wounded soldiers as a key use case. Legal, regulatory and team-dynamics barriers loom large here. As of now, law and regulation make it difficult (often impossible) for physicians to do remote diagnosis and recommend treatment – let alone operate on a patient – across state lines in the US. Also, we have decades of research showing that geographically distributed teams underperform relative to their collocated counterparts. We should be wary of a surgeon in California trying to coordinate a surgery with a nurse and a surgical scrub at the bedside in Atlanta.

No matter how safe we make robotic surgical procedures, they will become a luxury available to a very few if we fail to address the sustainability of the practice. Some hybrid of the options above on a large scale will likely be required to address the constraints that “best practice” with these systems places on surgical training. Bringing this lens to the next wave of development in surgical technology – such as Google’s joint venture on robotic surgery with Johnson & Johnson – shouldn’t take much additional effort, and could extend the benefits of minimally invasive surgery to many more at decreased cost.

References

[1] Agarwal, Piyush K., Jesse Sammon, Akshay Bhandari, Ali Dabaja, Mireya Diaz, Stacey Dusik-Fenton, Ramgopal Satyanarayana, Andrea Simone, Quoc-Dien Trinh, and Brad Baize. 2011. “Safety Profile of Robot-Assisted Radical Prostatectomy: A Standardized Report of Complications in 3317 Patients.” European Urology 59 (5): 684–98.

[2] Chang, Steven L., Adam S. Kibel, James D. Brooks, and Benjamin I. Chung. 2014. “The Impact of Robotic Surgery on the Surgical Management of Prostate Cancer in the USA.” BJU International, September, n/a – n/a. doi:10.1111/bju.12850.

[3] Sammon, Jesse D., Firas Abdollah, Dane E. Klett, Daniel Pucheril, Akshay Sood, Quoc-Dien Trinh, and Mani Menon. 2015. “The Diminishing Returns of Robotic Diffusion: Complications Following Robot-Assisted Radical Prostatectomy.” BJU International, March, n/a – n/a. doi:10.1111/bju.13111.

[4] Trinh, Quoc-Dien, Jesse Sammon, Maxine Sun, Praful Ravi, Khurshid R Ghani, Marco Bianchi, Wooju Jeong, et al. 2012. “Perioperative Outcomes of Robot-Assisted Radical Prostatectomy Compared with Open Radical Prostatectomy: Results from the Nationwide Inpatient Sample.” European Urology 61 (4): 679–85. doi:10.1016/j.eururo.2011.12.027.

Transenterix raised $50 million from an IPO and market switch that transferred their stock from the over-the-counter market to the special small-cap MKT Exchange on the NYSE.

The maker of the SurgiBot System to enhance laparoscopic surgery through robotic assistance, a system that is presently awaiting FDA approval, plans to use the funds to ramp up a sales force to market the new system.

The SurgiBot System enables the surgeon to remain aside the patient while performing the surgical procedure. The system augments the surgeon to enable scalable motion and to control multiple instruments and camera. The new system integrates 3D hi-def monitors so that the whole operating room is privy to the operation. A steerable chip-on-tip vision allows the surgeon to adjust and control the image.

Proof of the success of their efforts came the other day when they won a $430 million contract from the U.S. Department of Defense. It’s a five-year deal to supply da Vinci robots, tools and spares to Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps hospitals.

The DoD contract comes shortly after the company successfully received FDA approval for two of its new surgical systems last year – the da Vinci Xi, a gantry-style upgrade to their basic system that includes a higher definition vision system, better consoles and controls (and in some cases two sets of controls and consoles) and a general upgrade of everything else, and the new da Vinci SP (single port) system. The SP system squeezes a 3D high-def camera and three fully articulating instruments through its 25 mm cannula (single thin tube containing the arms and end-of-arm tools; the tube goes through a single hole in the body).

Intuitive’s 2014 revenue was $2.1 billion and the number of procedures performed using da vinci products grew 9% year over year to almost 600,000. Quoting from Intuitive’s Annual Report about 2015:

“In 2015, our focus will be on accomplishing the following objectives: First, we will focus on the expanded use of da Vinci in general surgery, particularly colorectal surgery and hernia repair. Second, we will work to complete our launch and new product introductions of the da Vinci Xi Surgical System in key markets globally. Third, we will continue to develop our organizational capabilities and markets in Europe and Asia. Finally, we plan to build da Vinci SP prototypes that are compatible with our da Vinci Xi system and initiate customer evaluations.”

 

In spite of this success, or perhaps because of it, Google and Johnson & Johnson announced a collaboration to produce a competing line of products to use robots to assist surgeons. The announcement of this strategic pooling of resources didn’t include a price tag or investment amount.

According to the San Jose Mercury News, “Google stressed that the life sciences team at Google X will only be providing software and sensors for the proposed systems, with J&J’s Ethicon unithandling the rest of work. The Mountain View company’s robotics arm – Google acquired robotics firm Boston Dynamics in late 2013 – will not be involved.”

“We think we can use some of our machine vision and image analysis software to help surgeons see better as they operate (e.g. to highlight blood vessels) or make it easier for them to see information that’s relevant to the surgery at just the right time,” a Google spokeswoman said.

An Intuitive Surgical spokeswoman said that the effort by Google and Ethicon was a validation of Intuitive Surgical’s work.

“This announcement is just the latest confirmation that computer-assisted surgery continues to grow to the point that others can no longer sit on the sidelines. Computer-assisted surgery will continue to flourish around the globe and competitors have been expected.”

“Auklet flock Shumagins 1986” by D. Dibenski -Wikimedia

Imagine a swarm of microscopic robots that we inject into the vascular system: the swarm swims to the source of the problem, then either delivers therapeutics or undertakes microsurgery directly.

That was how I opened a short invited talk at the Royal Society of Medicine on 5 February, at a meeting themed The Future of Robotics in Surgery. The talk was a wonderful opportunity for me to introduce swarm intelligence and speculate on the likelihood of surgical micro-robot swarms, while at the same time learning about robot surgery. Here are the slides from my talk (with links to YouTube videos where available).

The talk was in three parts.

First I introduced swarm intelligence, and its artificial counterpart swarm robotics. I showed, with examples from two of my students, how – with very simple rules – a swarm of robots can keep together as a swarm, while moving toward a beacon. Then, with a phagocyte-like behaviour, encapsulate the beacon. In our case these were lab robots moving toward an infra-red beacon, but it’s not hard to imagine the same behavioural rules in a microscopic swarm swimming toward the source of a chemical marker (chemotaxis). I then gave two examples of the state of the art in swarm robotics: SYMBRION and (my current favourite) TERMES. I wanted to illustrate emergent physical interaction, in these two cases swarm self-assembly and swarm construction, respectively.

In part two I outlined what is by far the biggest problem: actually engineering robots at the micro-scale. Here I drew upon the examples from my book Robotics: a very short introduction; a section called A swarm of medical microrobots.  Start with cm sized robots. These already exist in the form of pillbots and I reference the work of Paolo Dario’s lab in this direction. Then get 10 times smaller to mm sized robots. Here we’re at the limit of making robots with conventional mechatronics. The almost successful I-SWARM project prototyped remarkable robots measuring 4 x 4 x 3mm. But now shrink by another 3 orders of magnitude to microbots, measured in micrometers. This is how small robots would have to be in order to swim through and access (most of) the vascular system. Here we are far beyond conventional materials and electronics, but amazingly work is going on to control bacteria. In the example I give from the lab of Sylvain Martel, swarms of magnetotactic bacteria are steered by an external magnetic field and, interestingly, tracked in an MRI scanner.

In the final part of my talk I introduce the work of my colleague Sabine Hauert, on swarms of nanoparticles for cancer nanomedicine. These 5 – 500nm particles are controlled by changing their body size, material, coating and cargo so – in true swarm fashion – the way the nanoparticle swarm moves and interacts with much larger normal and tumour cells is an emergent property of the way the nanoparticles individually interact and cooperate. Sabine and her collaborators have created an online tool called NanoDoc, which allows anyone to edit the design of nanoparticles then run simulations to see how their designs perform. In this way the task of searching the huge design space is crowd-sourced. In parallel Sabine is also running mesoscale embodied simulations, using the Harvard Kilobots.

I concluded by suggesting that engineering micro or nanobots is not the only major challenge. At least as important are: (a) how would you program the swarm, and (b) how would such a swarm be approved for clinical use? But a deeply interesting question is the nature of the human-swarm interface. If a swarm of surgical microbots should become a practical proposition would we treat the swarm as a microscopic instrument under the surgeon’s control, or a smart drug that does surgery?

If you liked this article, you may also be interested in:

• Crowdsourcing new strategies for cancer treatment: Towards swarming nanobots
• Thousand-robot swarm self-assembles into arbitrary shapes
• Micro-robotics and medicine: Interview with Toshio Fukuda
• Minimally-invasive eye surgery on the horizon as magnetically-guided microbots move toward clinical trials
• Better micro-actuators to transport materials in liquids
• Micro bio-bots powered by beating heart cells
• Robots Podcast: Bacteria-propelled microrobots
• Swarmbots: James McLurkin on why, how, and when we will see swarm robotics in practice
• ShanghAI Lectures: Samia Nefti-Mezziani “Non-rational Particle Swarm Optimization”

See all the latest robotics news on Robohub, or sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Automating repetitive surgical subtasks such as cutting and debridement can facilitate supervised tele-surgery, and reduce surgeon fatigue and procedure times. Programming these tasks can be difficult, however, in part because human tissue is deformable. Using the da Vinci Research Kit (DVRK) robotic surgical assistant, we explore a “Learning By Observation” (LBO) approach where we identify, segment, and parameterize sub-trajectories (“surgemes”) and sensor conditions to build a finite state machine (FSM) for each subtask. The robot then executes the FSM repeatedly in order to tune parameters and update the FSM structure.

A video from UC Berkeley’s new Center for Automation and Learning for Medical Robotics (Cal-MR) demonstrates how the approach can be used to automate two surgical subtasks: debridement of 3D Viscoelastic Tissue Phantoms (3d-DVTP), in which small target fragments are removed from a 3D viscoelastic tissue phantom, and Pattern Cutting of 2D Orthotropic Tissue Phantoms (2d-PCOTP), a step in the standard Fundamentals of Laparoscopic Surgery training suite in which a specified circular area must be cut from a sheet of orthotropic tissue phantom.

Initial physical experiments yielded a success rate of 96% for 50 trials of the 3d-DVTP subtask and 70% for 20 trials of the 2d-PCOTP subtask.

Paper under review:

Learning by Observation for Surgical Subtasks: Multilateral Cutting of 3D Viscoelastic and 2D Orthotropic Tissue Phantoms. Adithyavairavan Murali, Siddarth Sen, Ben Kehoe, Animesh Garg, Seth McFarland, Sachin Patil, W. Douglas Boyd, Susan Lim, Pieter Abbeel, Ken Goldberg, UC Berkeley. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation. May, 2015.

This concludes the ShanghAI Lecture series of 2012. After a wrap-up of the class, we announce the winners of the EmbedIT and NAO competitions and end with an outlook of the future of the ShanghAI Lectures.

Then there are three guest lectures: Tamás Haidegger (Budapest University of Technology and Economics) on surgical robots, Aude Billard (EPFL) on how the body shapes the way we move (and how humans can shape the way robots move), and Jamie Paik (EPFL) on soft robotics.

The ShanghAI Lectures are a videoconference-based lecture series on Embodied Intelligence run by Rolf Pfeifer and organized by me and partners around the world.

Tamás Haidegger: Human Skills for Robots: Transferring Human Knowledge and Capabilities to Robotic Task Execution in Surgery

Almost 90 years ago, the idea of telesurgery was born, along with the initial concept of robots. From the early 1970s, researchers were focusing on robotic telepresence, to empower surgeons to treat patients at a distance. The first systems appeared over 20 years ago, and robotic surgery has quickly become a standard-of-care for certain procedures—at least in the USA. Over the decades, the control concept remained the same; a human surgeon guiding the robotic tools based on real-time sensory feedback. However, from the beginning of the development, the more exciting (and sometimes frightening) questions have been linked to machine learning, AI and automated surgery. In the true sense of automation, there have only been unclear reports of one single robotically planned and executed surgery so far, despite the fact that many research groups are working on the problem. This talk introduces the major efforts currently undertaken in centers of excellence around the globe to transfer the incredibly diverse and versatile human cognition into the domain of surgical robotics.

References

• P. Kazanzides, G. Fichtinger, G. D. Hager, A. M. Okamura, L. L. Whitcomb, and R. H. Taylor, “Surgical and Interventional Robotics: part I,” IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine (RAM), vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 122–130, 2008.
• G. Fichtinger , P. Kazanzides, G. D. Hager, A. M. Okamura, L. L. Whitcomb, and R. H. Taylor, “Surgical and Interventional Robotics: part II,” IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine (RAM), vol. 15, no. 3, pp. 94–102, 2008.
• G. Hager, A. Okamura, P. Kazanzides, L. Whitcomb, G. Fichtinger, and R. Taylor, “Surgical and Interventional Robotics: part III,” IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine (RAM), vol. 15, no. 4, pp. 84–93, 2008.
• C. E. Reiley, H. C. Lin, D. D. Yuh, G. D. Hager. “A Review of Methods for Objective Surgical Skill Evaluation,” Surgical Endoscopy, vol. 25, no. 2, pp. 356–366, 2011.

Aude Billard: How the body shapes the way we move and how humans can shape the way robots move

In this lecture Aude Billard advocates that it is advantageous to have robots move with a dynamics that resembles the dynamics of motion of natural bodies, even if the robots do not resemble humans in their physical appearance (e.g. industrial robots). This will make their motion more predictable for humans and hence make the interaction safer. She then briefly presents current approaches to modeling the dynamics of human motion in robots.

A survey of issues on robot learning from human demonstration can be found at:
http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Robot_learning_by_demonstration

Jamie Paik: SOFT Robot Challenge and 
Robogamis