A tribute to Raven
A nice article appeared yesterday in IEEE EMBS' Pulse magazine about the Raven robot.
"RAVEN is a third generation surgical robotics research platform,
originally developed with DOD funding to demonstrate a lightweight field
deployable surgical robot that could be teleoperated by surgeons remote
from the battlefield. RAVEN’s genesis was in a decade of research at
the University of Washington aimed at the application of mathematical
modeling and technology to surgery. A series of experiments were
designed to teach a computer model to recognize the motions of expert
laparoscopic surgeons. Such a software system can be used in surgical
training to recognize levels of surgical proficiency. Tools for
minimally invasive surgery (MIS) were modified to incorporate a range of
measurement instruments. Then these tools, along with systems including
Blue and Red Dragon, were used to record a stream of dynamic and
kinematic data from cadaver and animal surgeries. These data were then
encapsulated in multi-state statistical model, using a Hidden Markov
Model (HMM) approach. HMMs are used frequently in speech recognition
software. In this case the software was used to recognize the “language
of surgery” with a vocabulary and grammar of its own."
Read more of the story here. Also, read our previous posts on the Raven: here, here, here and here.
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