Report on the First Surgical Robot Challenge

A nice report appeared in the IEEE RAM recently by Robert Merrifield and Guang-Zhong Yang about the first Surgical Robot Challenge organized at Hamlyn 2015.

"The first international Surgical Robot Challenge took place in London, United Kingdom, 17–21 June 2015. During the challenge, 18 teams from around the world took part in the finals of the competition that was held as part of the Hamlyn Symposium for Medical Robotics. The competition saw a broad range of high-quality entries showcasing hardware and software innovations in surgical robotics. All but two of the entries were based on the open research platforms dVRK, KUKA, and Raven II. The competition was supported by Intuitive Surgical, KUKA, and Applied Dexterity. Each team had 3 h to set up their robot kit and give a live demonstration. They then had to present their platforms to a judging panel of both academic and industrial leaders in surgical robotics. Prizes were awarded in five categories: best design, best innovation, best application, best live demo, and best video. From these, the judging panel chose an overall winner. The total prize fund was US$10,000. The winning team, T. Looi, K. Eastwood, V. Bodani, K. Price, K. Upadhyaya, D. Podolsky, H. Azimian, P. Bowlin, W. Farhet, and J. Drake, from the Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Canada, presented a new concentric tube robot (video: A Concentric Tube Tool for the daVinci Research Kit). Concentric tube robots have shown advantages over conventional continuum robots in terms of size and articulation. They utilize a series of curved nitinol tubes that pass through one another. Using linear and rotational actuation of each tube with computer control, it is possible for the tip of the robot to have a large three-dimensional (3-D) workspace. The innovation presented by the winning team is in their design and interface with the popular daVinci surgical robot, uniquely combining the strength of both platforms. This entry also won the Best Design Award." Read more in the RAM article!

Get ready for the 2016 edition!



Source: IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine