Medical Robot and Master Slave System for Minimally Invasive Surgery

A robotic surgical system reduces stress on the patient, equalizes differences in the quality of local medical service, and enhances emergency medical care and medical education. Robotic surgery is particularly appropriate for minimally invasive surgery (MIS) because it achieves high operational accuracy even in concealed regions. The minimally invasive surgical system introduced in this paper comprises master manipulators operated by a surgeon and slave manipulators that conduct the surgery. The system transmits the total environment of the operating room and reduces the load applied to soft tissues by approximately 30% by implementing an augmented force presentation capability for the surgeon. In the system developed for the total knee arthroplasty (TKA), minimal invasiveness was achieved by generating a tool path employing multiple degrees of freedom of the surgical robot to avoid injury to the soft tissues. The bone-cutting force and resulting temperature rise were limited by employing cutting conditions compatible with bone viability.