Design and Integration of Electrical Bio-impedance Sensing in Surgical Robotic Tools for Tissue Identification and Display.

Zhuoqi Cheng,Simone Foti,Darwin G Caldwell,Andrea Mariani,Leonardo S Mattos,Elena De Momi,Diego Dall'Alba,Paolo Fiorini,Thibaud Chupin,Giancarlo Ferrigno

doi:10.3389/frobt.2019.00055

Zhuoqi Cheng, Simone Foti + Show 8 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/frobt.2019.00055

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Abstract

The integration of intra-operative sensors into surgical robots is a hot research topic since this can significantly facilitate complex surgical procedures by enhancing surgical awareness with real-time tissue information. However, currently available intra-operative sensing technologies are mainly based on image processing and force feedback, which normally require heavy computation or complicated hardware modifications of existing surgical tools. This paper presents the design and integration of electrical bio-impedance sensing into a commercial surgical robot tool, leading to the creation of a novel smart instrument that allows the identification of tissues by simply touching them. In addition, an advanced user interface is designed to provide guidance during the use of the system and to allow augmented-reality visualization of the tissue identification results. The proposed system imposes minor hardware modifications to an existing surgical tool, but adds the capability to provide a wealth of data about the tissue being manipulated. This has great potential to allow the surgeon (or an autonomous robotic system) to better understand the surgical environment. To evaluate the system, a series of ex-vivo experiments were conducted. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed sensing system can successfully identify different tissue types with 100% classification accuracy. In addition, the user interface was shown to effectively and intuitively guide the user to measure the electrical impedance of the target tissue, presenting the identification results as augmented-reality markers for simple and immediate recognition.

Highlights

Robot-assisted Minimally Invasive Surgery (RMIS) has come to the forefront in the last decades since this technology can provide enhanced dexterity and 3D perception of the surgical field
It is challenging for the surgeon to recognize different tissues in the surgical field due to the fact that the visual properties of most organs are very similar from the endoscopic camera, especially when the field of view is under poor illumination conditions, occluded by smoke produced during electrocautery or by surgical tools
In consideration of the limitations of the state-of-the-art work presented above, we propose a novel sensing system for intraoperative tissue identification, which includes an Electrical BioImpedance (EBI) sensor and an Advanced User Interface (AUI)

Summary

Introduction

Robot-assisted Minimally Invasive Surgery (RMIS) has come to the forefront in the last decades since this technology can provide enhanced dexterity and 3D perception of the surgical field. These advantages produce a surgical approach that is more ergonomic for surgeons and safer for patients, as described in Elhage et al (2007). The incorporation of real-time sensing technologies during complex medical procedures is an essential component for novel surgical robotic platforms. The identification accuracy can be significantly affected by the illumination condition of the target Such technologies commonly require heavy computation which limits their application in realistic surgical conditions

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