Robot ontologies for sensor- and Image-guided surgery

Robots and robotics are becoming more complex and flexible, due to technological advancement, improved sensing capabilities and machine intelligence. Service robots target a wide range of applications, relying on advanced Human-Robot Interaction. Medical robotics is becoming a leading application area within, and the number of surgical, rehabilitation and hospital assistance robots is rising rapidly. However, the complexity of the medical environment has been a major barrier, preventing a wider use of robotic technology, thus mostly teleoperated, human-in-the-loop control solutions emerged so far. Providing smarter and better medical robots requires a systematic approach in describing and translating human processes for the robots. It is believed that ontologies can bridge human cognitive understanding and robotic reasoning (machine intelligence). Besides, ontologies serve as a tool and method to assess the added value robotic technology brings into the medical environment. The purpose of this paper is to identify relevant ontology research in medical robotic, and to review the state-of-the-art. It focuses on the surgical domain, fundamental terminology and interactions are described for two example applications in neurosurgery and orthopaedics.