MR-compatible robotics at AIM-WPI

Our great friends at Worcester Polytechnic Institute's Automation and Interventional Medicine (AIM) Robotics Research Laboratory (lead by Greg Fisher) have been developing generations of MR compatible robots. 
Hao Su presented their latest results at SPIE:

• A networked modular hardware and software system for MRI-guided  robotic prostate interventions, and another one,
• A high accuracy multi-image  registration method for tracking MRI- guided robots.

You can learn more about the three generations of robots on their website:

• 6-DOF Cylindrical Approach Prostate Intervention Robot
• 6-DOF Conical Approach Prostate Intervention Robot 
• MRI-compatible Concentric Tube Robot

You will be able to learn more about their Fabry-Perot interferometry-based force sensors and the MR-compatible controller deisgn once they are out with the ICRA paper "An MRI-Guided Concentric Tube Continuum Robot with Piezoelectric Actuation: A Feasibility Study".

A cool video on their da Vinci slave platform:

Surgical Robot Prototyping---Shameless selfpromotion

Since this is the first real book chapter I published, I take the opportunity to popularize it:

Prototyping of Robotic Systems: Applications of Design and Implementation by Eds. Tarek Sobh  and Xingguo Xiong (University of Bridgeport, USA).

Chater 10 is "Surgical Robots: System Development, Assessment, and Clearance". You can access the first twopages here.

Abstract: "Information technology and robotics have been integrated into interventional medicine for over 25 years. Their primary aim has always been to provide patient benefits through increased precision, safety, and minimal invasiveness. Nevertheless, robotic devices should allow for sophisticated treatment methods that are not possible by other means. Several hundreds of different surgical robot prototypes have been developed, while only a handful passed clearance procedures, and was released to the market. This is mostly due to the difficulties associated with medical device development and approval, especially in those cases when some form of manipulation and automation is involved. This chapter is intended to present major aspects of surgical robotic prototyping and current trends through the analysis of various international projects. It spans across the phases from system planning, to development, validation, and clearance."

My previous book chapter on Extreme telesurgery is open access.

IRCAD-IEEE MIS course LIVE on Thursday

Please join with us the upcoming live event of the IRCAD-IEEE course on innovation in MIS. 

Register here. Learn more about the program here. 

FEBRUARY 23, 4.30PM GMT+1 at IRCAD, and streamed online. The distinguished lecturers will be:

• Prof. Michel de Mathelin on Automation and Control Challenges in the OR
• Prof. Arianna Menciassi on the Future of Robotic MIS

CIS news

• Learn more about the development of the Raven II robots. This is how they ship and  arrive to destination
• Just picked up this footage on the Montpellier summer school in 2007, when we were playing with the Raven in Seattle. 
• Sceptical analysis of surgical robotics financials, also about lapchole
• Imhotep toolholder robot
• CyberKnife's lung treatment got 510(k)New hospital disinfectioning robot--Xenex
• Da Vinci humor
• Da Vinci surgery with Robotic Doppler Probe from Vascular Technology
• Our Singapore friends robot got some additional publicity
• A new (unidentified) lapar robot
• An older post on Laparobot
• Great friend--Carol Reiley--talks for Make magazine
• TED MED: The (Fluorescent) Future of Surgery

We are just swarmed with great events and conferences:

•  IFAC Symposium on Biological and Medical Systems, Budapest (dl: March 4.) 
• Hamlyn Smyposium in London (deadline: March 28.). Learn more about the center.
• IEEE EMBC in San Diego (dl: March 15.)
• Joint SCATh workshop in Madrid (dl: March 15.). Learn about the previous edition
• IEEE Computer-Based Medical Systems--CBMS, Rome (dl: Febr. 10)
• MICCAI in Nice (dl: March 1.)
• Active FP7 workshop at ICRA2012, St. Paul (dl: April 15.)
• EuroSurge workshop within the frames of the European Robotics Forum, Odense
• Or you can also apply for a TED MED scholarship

Further CIS news:

• 3D printed prostetics; on MedGadget as well
• Customized touchpad for MRI control 
• MIS Anterior Hip Retractor System
• medTrak intra-op MR 
• Now, you can invest to IMRIS' VISIUS surgical suit. (But check out Harvard's AMIGO before!)
• Microsoft's and GE's Caradigm
• The new Curve, from Brainlab 

Another vintagfe footage on the "future of telesuregy" with Zeus/Hermes:

The IRCAD-IEEE course rolls on

The IRCAD-IEEE course on innovation in MIS has reached its next phase: the engineering sessions. The first two lectures are already available for everyone from the IRCAD student website:

• Prof. Luc Soler on medical imaging
• Prof. Wolfgang Birkfellner on intraoperative visualization and tracking

More exciting lectures are to follow! In addition you are all cordially invited to the LIVE engineering in MIS session of the course that will take place FEBRUARY 23, 4.30PM GMT+1 at IRCAD, and streamed online. The distinguished lecturers will be:

• Prof. Michel de Mathelin on Automation and Control Challenges in the OR
• Prof. Arianna Menciassi on the Future of Robotic MIS

Learn more about it from the newsletter. 

Register now!

IARP meeting on Cognitive Surgical Robotics

At the end of January, the International Advanced Robotics Programme (IARP) held a 2-day forum on Cognitive Surgical Robotics in Heidelberg. The program featured renowned scientists from all around the world, who presented the state of the art in their region. Talks covered Europe in general, Germany, Korea, the UK, Japan, France, Spain, Poland and the US with Canada. (Probably the most exciting part in Ron Kikinis' presentation was when he introduced all the free medical imaging platforms based on a Nature Methods article, and derived why Slicer in the only good solution out there.) The next session was covering key companies/centers working in the area, such as DLR, KUKA and Force Dimension. Next, the current/recent major FP7 projects were introduced, such as Robocast, Active, EuroSurge, Safros. Participants also got an insight to what certain groups have roadmaped for the future. Cognition was also addressed on the sideline, although more questions were raised than answers given. Finally, a panel was brought up where an interesting discussion emerged, where the distinguished fellows expressed their anticipation for the future: 

• expect to see evidence-based robotic surgery
• SILS/NOTES on a higher scale
• affordable MIS tools
• all kinds of guidance for procedures.

Adjoin, participants were given an organized tour to the medical robotics labs of KIT in Karlsruhe, and I also got a private tour to the labs of dkfz's Division of Medical and Biological Informatics. (Reports will come later.)

Call for IEEE RAS student reviewer mentors

A good year ago we started a new initiative, the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society's Student Reviewing Program (SRP). It aims to introduce students to the reviewing process step-by-step, in a controlled and supervised way. Within the SRP, some specific goals have been formulated:

• Collect and create instructive material that students can refer to for help in the reviewing process,
• Organize a training and supervision process for students to become a better reviewer,
• Create a community of talented and devoted students,
• Provide a database with experienced and motivated students that editorial boards can refer to,
• Raise awareness about this program in the community.

The first year of the SRP closed with a successful pilot round, where 13 RAS student volunteers were involved in the reviewing procedure of the upcoming ICRA2012 conference under the guidance of Program Chair Prof. Lynne Parker (University of Tennessee). 

Now we are looking for new mentors for the SRP class of BioRob2012, which will be held in June in Rome. If you are a senior graduate student or beyond with experience in reviewing papers (especially for IEEE)--within the field if medical robotics, biorobotics--we cordially inite you to become a mentor for the SRP!

If you are interested, apply by sending an email to ras-srp.coordinator@ieee.org, with the following information:

• your name an email address;
• a one-paragraph motivation;
• one keyword that describes your field of expertise;
• your PaperPlaza PIN, if you have one.

Learn more about the SRP program here (next call for IROS2012 will open in March), or check out our previous articles in the RAS Magazine:

• L. Visser and T. Haidegger, “The Reviewing Process: an Introduction for New Reviewers”