Internet of Things (IoT)-based Collaborative Control of a Redundant Manipulator for Teleoperated Minimally Invasive Surgeries

In this paper, an Internet of Things-based human-robot collaborative control scheme is developed in Robot-assisted Minimally Invasive Surgery scenario. A hierarchical operational space formulation is designed to exploit the redundancies of the 7-DoFs redundant manipulator to handle multiple operational tasks based on their priority levels, such as guaranteeing a remote center of motion constraint and avoiding collision with a swivel motion without influencing the undergoing surgical operation. Furthermore, the concept of the Internet of Robotic Things is exploited to facilitate the best action of the robot in human-robot interaction. Instead of utilizing compliant swivel motion, HTC VIVE PRO controllers, used as the Internet of Things technology, is adopted to detect the collision. A virtual force is applied to the robot elbow, enabling a smooth swivel motion for human-robot interaction. The effectiveness of the proposed strategy is validated using experiments performed on a patient phantom in a lab setup environment, with a KUKA LWR4+ slave robot and a SIGMA 7 master manipulator. By comparison with previous works, the results show improved performances in terms of the accuracy of the RCM constraint and surgical tip.