Surgical Instrument Control With Dynamic Reference Posture
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Solution Overview
Problem
Surgical robots often experience mechanical constraints that lead to interrupted operations and deviations from user intent due to mechanical limitations, causing inefficiencies and discomfort during remote surgeries.
Innovation Solution
A method and apparatus that generate manipulation information based on user input, decide target postures considering driving limits, and adjust driving elements to ensure they operate within these limits, initializing the reference posture when necessary to align with user intent.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If the surgical robot operates within mechanical driving limits, then the reliability of operation is improved, but the ease of operation deteriorates because the robot cannot perform operations desired by the surgical operator when limits are reached
Solution Approach 1:
The system dynamically adjusts the reference posture of the user input interface based on the current posture and driving limits. When the surgical robot approaches or reaches its driving limits, the reference posture is automatically updated to reflect the constrained workspace, allowing the surgical operator to continue manipulating the control lever intuitively without encountering hard stops or interruptions. This dynamic adaptation resolves the contradiction by making the operating system flexible rather than rigid.
Solution Approach 2:
The system changes the parameter of reference posture dynamically based on the surgical robot's current state and mechanical constraints. By modifying the reference posture parameter in real-time, the system allows the surgical operator to maintain intuitive control while the robot operates within its mechanical driving limits, thus improving ease of operation without sacrificing reliability.
2Device complexity
If the surgical robot uses traditional inverse kinematics transformation, then the device complexity is reduced, but the productivity deteriorates because control interruption occurs when driving limits are exceeded
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary action by proactively adjusting the reference posture before the surgical robot actually reaches its driving limits. By anticipating the constraints and pre-adapting the reference posture, the system prevents control interruptions from occurring in the first place, thereby maintaining high surgical operation efficiency without adding complex control logic.
Solution Approach 2:
The reference posture acts as an intermediary between the surgical operator's input and the surgical robot's physical constraints. Instead of directly mapping control lever movements to robot joint movements (which would cause interruptions at limits), the system uses the dynamically adjusted reference posture as a mediator to smoothly translate operator intent into feasible robot movements, improving productivity without increasing device complexity.
3Ease of operation
If the reference posture is not updated when driving limits are reached, then the ease of operation is improved by maintaining consistent control, but the reliability deteriorates because the surgical robot operates differently from user intention
Solution Approach 1:
The system dynamically updates the reference posture based on the surgical robot's current posture and driving limits. This dynamic adjustment ensures that the reference posture always reflects the actual feasible workspace, allowing the surgical operator to maintain intuitive and accurate control even when the robot approaches its mechanical limits, thus improving control accuracy while maintaining ease of operation.
Data Source
AI summary
Provided is a method for driving a surgical instrument. The method includes: generating manipulation information of the surgical instrument based on an amount of change in a reference posture of a user input interface for controlling the surgical instrument; determining a target posture of the surgical instrument, corresponding to the generated manipulation information; generating target state information for at least one driving element based on whether the target posture exceeds a driving limit of the at least one driving element provided in the surgical instrument; and driving the at least one driving element according to the target state information.