Perception and Computation in Miniature Surgical Robots

Miniature robots are starting to be used in surgery as actuated micro instrument in specific procedures. In this paper we examine the implications of using them as human movement amplifiers. In this case, task performance is not determined only by robot dynamics, but also by the amplification parameters and by their tuning to the human perception system. We consider tasks in which a miniature robot is moved in an unknown environment and we examine the robot requirements to augment the surgeon sensations and support a better perception. Robot requirements include motion transparency, however since the knowledge of how the human perception system works is still limited, it is not clear what are the best robot characteristics to reach true transparency. Our approach is to use a standard force-reflecting teleoperation system to examine how an operator feels various types of remote environments, and how the teleoperator influences the human perception. Since for best results the haptic device must interfere as little as possible, or positively interact, with human perception, high performance hardware-based controllers must be used. Furthermore, new perception models must be developed to achieve a good understanding of active instrument control. We describe the experiments planned to evaluate the high performance controllers developed so far, and to model the relevant aspects of human perception