Problem
Research questions and friction points this paper is trying to address.
humanoid robots
minimally invasive surgery
instrument exchange
surgical robotics
teleoperation
A Rapid Instrument Exchange System for Humanoid Robots in Minimally Invasive Surgery
🤖 AI Summary
This study addresses the challenge that humanoid robots, limited to two arms, struggle to efficiently replicate surgeons’ natural instrument exchange workflows during minimally invasive surgery. To overcome this limitation, the authors propose an immersive teleoperated rapid instrument exchange system that uniquely integrates first-person real-time visual feedback from a head-mounted display (HMD) with a single-axis compliant docking mechanism, augmented by an environmental constraint release strategy. This integration substantially reduces operational complexity and cognitive load. Experimental results demonstrate the system’s high robustness and show that novice users, after brief training, achieve significantly improved instrument handling performance. These findings validate the technical feasibility of enabling humanoid robots to perform stable and efficient instrument exchanges in constrained clinical environments.
📝 Abstract
Humanoid robot technologies have demonstrated immense potential for minimally invasive surgery (MIS). Unlike dedicated multi-arm surgical platforms, the inherent dual-arm configuration of humanoid robots necessitates an efficient instrument exchange capability to perform complex procedures, mimicking the natural workflow where surgeons manually switch instruments. To address this, this paper proposes an immersive teleoperated rapid instrument exchange system. The system utilizes a low-latency mechanism based on single-axis compliant docking and environmental constraint release. Integrated with real-time first-person view (FPV) perception via a head-mounted display (HMD), this framework significantly reduces operational complexity and cognitive load during the docking process. Comparative evaluations between experts and novices demonstrate high operational robustness and a rapidly converging learning curve; novice performance in instrument attachment and detachment improved substantially after brief training. While long-distance spatial alignment still presents challenges in time cost and collaborative stability, this study successfully validates the technical feasibility of humanoid robots executing stable instrument exchanges within constrained clinical environments.
Innovation
Methods, ideas, or system contributions that make the work stand out.
rapid instrument exchange
humanoid robot
minimally invasive surgery
teleoperation
compliant docking
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