A team of researchers has proposed two adaptors that enable general-purpose robots to operate da Vinci instruments without modifying them, with a view to making robotic surgery more accessible.
Minimally invasive robot-assisted surgery has proven its worth, but dedicated platforms are expensive and require heavy infrastructure, which deprives rural or less well-equipped hospitals of it. Recent work has already remotely operated general robots for laparoscopic procedures, but by making them hold manual instruments connected by passive links, without any real motorization of the tools.
Real instruments, natively controlled
Michael C. Yip's team introduces DASH (da Vinci Adapter for Serial-link and Humanoid platforms), which takes the problem the other way around: running the original da Vinci Classic and Xi instruments on general-purpose robots. The system includes two types of adapters, compatible with arms of varying load capacities, including humanoids. The instruments are not modified: the adapter snaps into place on their original lock and wirelessly identifies the inserted tool, allowing its own kinematics and coupling parameters to be automatically loaded.
Teleoperation tests show that the whole thing works. The authors see this above all as a way to open up surgical robotics research to laboratories that do not have a complete da Vinci robot.
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