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Research Papers

# Design of a Multi-Arm Surgical Robotic System for Dexterous Manipulation

[+] Author and Article Information
Zhi Li

Electrical and Computer Engineering,
Duke University,
Durham, NC 27708
e-mail: zhi.li2@duke.edu

Dejan Milutinović

Computer Engineering,
University of California, Santa Cruz,
Santa Cruz, CA 95064
e-mail: Dejan@soe.ucsc.edu

Jacob Rosen

Bionics Lab,
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering,
University of California, Los Angeles,
Los Angeles, CA 90095
e-mail: rosen@seas.ucla.edu

Manuscript received October 7, 2015; final manuscript received June 20, 2016; published online October 11, 2016. Assoc. Editor: Satyandra K. Gupta.

J. Mechanisms Robotics 8(6), 061017 (Oct 11, 2016) (10 pages) Paper No: JMR-15-1292; doi: 10.1115/1.4034143 History: Received October 07, 2015; Revised June 20, 2016

## Abstract

Surgical procedures are traditionally performed by two or more surgeons along with staff nurses: one serves as the primary surgeon and the other as his/her assistant. Introducing surgical robots into the operating room has significantly changed the dynamics of interaction between the surgeons and with the surgical site. In this paper, we design a surgical robotic system to support the collaborative operation of multiple surgeons. This Raven IV surgical robotic system has two pairs of articulated robotic arms with a spherical configuration, each arm holding an articulated surgical tool. It allows two surgeons to teleoperate the Raven IV system collaboratively from two remote sites. To optimize the mechanism design of the Raven IV system, we configure the link architecture of each robotic arm, along with the position and orientation of the four bases and the port placement with respect to the patient's body. The optimization considers seven different parameters, which results in $2.3×1010$ system configurations. We optimize the common workspace and the manipulation dexterity of each robotic arm. We study here the effect of each individual parameter and conduct a brute force search to find the optimal set of parameters. The parameters for the optimized configuration result in an almost circular common workspace with a radius of 150 mm, accessible to all four arms.

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## References

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Cannon, J. , Stoll, J. , Selha, S. , Dupont, P. , Howe, R. , and Torchiana, D. , 2003, “ Port Placement Planning in Robot-Assisted Coronary Artery Bypass,” IEEE Trans. Rob. Autom., 19(5), pp. 912–917. [PubMed]
Trejos, A. , and Patel, R. , 2005, “ Port Placement for Endoscopic Cardiac Surgery Based on Robot Dexterity Optimization,” IEEE International Conference on Robotics & Automation (ROBOT), Barcelona, Spain, Apr. 18–22, pp. 912–917.
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Lum, M. , Friedman, D. C. W. , Sankaranarayanan, G. , King, H. K. F., II , Leuschke, R. , Hannaford, B. , Rosen, J. , and Sinanan, M. N. , 2009. “ The Raven—A Multidisciplinary Approach to Developing a Telesurgery System,” IJRR, 28(9), pp. 1183–1197.
Lum, M. , Rosen, J. , Lendvay, T. S. , Sinanan, M. N. , and Hannaford, B. , 2009, “ Effect of Time Delay on Telesurgical Performance,” IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA '09), Kobe, Japan, May 12–17, pp. 4246–4252.
Lum, M. J. , Rosen, J. , King, H. , Friedman, D. , Lendvay, T. , Wright, A. S. , Sinanan, M. N. , and Hannaford, B. , 2009, “ Teleoperation in Surgical Robotics—Network Latency Effects on Surgical Performance,” Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS 2010), Minneapolis, MN, Sept. 3–6, pp. 6860–6863.
Lum, M. J. , Rosen, J. , Lendvay, T. , Wright, A. S. , Sinanan, M. N. , and Hannaford, B. , 2008, “ TeleRobotic Fundamentals of Laparoscopic Surgery (FLS): Effects of Time Delay—Pilot Study,” 30th Annual Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (IEMBS), Vancouver, Canada, Aug. 20–25, pp. 5597–5600.
Brett, H. , Doarn, C. , Rosen, J. , Hannaford, B. , and Broderick, T. J. , 2008, “ Evaluation of Unmanned Airborne Vehicles and Mobile Robotic Telesurgery in an Extreme Environment,” Telemedicine J. E-Health, 14(6), pp. 534–544.
Lum, M. , Friedman, D. , Sankaranarayanan, G. , King, H. , Wright, A. , Sinanan, M. , Lendvay, T. , Rosen, J. , and Hannaford, B. , 2008, “ Objective Assessment of Telesurgical Robot Systems: Telerobotic FLS,” Medicine Meets Virtual Reality (MMVR 16), Long Beach, CA, Jan. 30–Feb. 1, pp. 263–265.
Sankaranarayanan, G. , Hannaford, B. , King, H. , Ko, S. , Lum, M. , Friedman, D. , Rosen, J. , and Hannaford, B. , 2007, “ Portable Surgery Master Station for Mobile Robotic Surgery,” 1st International Conference on Robot Communication and Coordination (RoboComm '07), Athens, Greece, Oct. 15–17, p. 28.
Lum, M. , Friedman, D. , King, H. , Donlin, R. , Sankaranarayanan, G. , Broderick, T. , Sinanan, M. , Rosen, J. , and Hannaford, B. , 2007, “ Teleoperation of a Surgical Robot Via Airborne Wireless Radio and Transatlantic Internet Links,” Field and Service Robots (Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics), Vol. 42, Springer, Berlin, pp. 305–314.
Lum, M. , Rosen, J. , King, H. , Friedman, D. , Donlin, G. , Sankaranarayanan, G. , Harnett, B. , Huffman, L. , Doarn, C. , Broderick, T. , and Hannaford, B. , 2007, “ Telesurgery Via Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) With a Field Deployable Surgical Robot,” Medicine Meets Virtual Reality (MMVR 15), Long Beach, CA, Feb. 6–9, pp. 313–315.
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Rosen, J. , Lum, M. , Sinanan, M. , and Hannaford, B. , 2011, “ Raven: Developing a Surgical Robot From a Concept to a Transatlantic Teleoperation Experiment,” Surgical Robotics, Systems, Applications, and Visions, 1st ed., R. M. Satava , ed., Springer, New York.
Lum, M. , Rosen, J. , Sinanan, M. , and Hanaford, B. , 2004, “ Kinematic Optimization of a Spherical Mechanism for a Minimally Invasive Surgical Robot,” IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA 2004), New Orleans, LA, Apr. 26–May 1, pp. 829–834.
Craig, J. , 2003, Introduction to Robotics: Mechanics and Control, 3rd ed., Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ, Chap. 1.

## Figures

Fig. 4

Example of two typical common workspaces of two Raven arms constructed for two different link lengths defined by α and β: (a) two-arm configuration defined by the link lengths α = 65 deg, and β = 15 deg resulting in ς=2.23 and (b) two-arm configuration defined by the link lengths α = 65 deg, β = 80 deg resulting in ς=4.48

Fig. 5

Parameters for the optimization of the common workspace (unit: mm)

Fig. 3

The common workspace projected onto the reference plane: (a) 3D view and (b) projection onto the x–z plane. (unit: mm)

Fig. 2

Reference frame of the Raven IV surgical robotic system: (a) surgical robot arm and (b) surgical tool

Fig. 1

Raven IV Surgical Robot System—CAD rendering of the four Raven's arms interacting with the patient. In the figure, most of the actuators were removed from the base of each arm to expose to the rest of the arms and the shared workspace. The workspaces are marked with transparent cones and their intersection defines the shared workspace.

Fig. 9

Effect of base orientation (ϕx, ϕy, and ϕz)

Fig. 10

Performance criteria Cmax as a function of port spacing along the two orthogonal directions bx and by

Fig. 11

The representative plot of the mechanism isotropy as a function of θ1 and θ2 for the first two link lengths α = 55 deg and β = 40 deg: (a) the mechanism isotropy of the Raven arm as a function of θ1 and θ2, showing that the isotropy does not depend on θ1 and (b) the mechanism isotropy of the Raven arm as a function of θ2, showing that the minimal required workspace isotropy Isomin limits the range for θ2

Fig. 6

Optimal configuration of the Raven IV surgical robot four arms following a brute force search (a) relative position and orientation of the system bases (b) optimized workspace (unit: mm)

Fig. 7

Cmax as a function of the first two link lengths α and β

Fig. 8

Cmax varies with Isomin

Fig. 15

Raven IV surgical robotic system—preliminary teleoperation experiment depicting two surgeons located at the University of Washington campus in Seattle WA teleoperated the four Raven arm system located in the University of California, Santa Cruz, CA using a commercial Internet connection

Fig. 12

Isomin affects the optimized shape of the common workspace depicted by the area-circumference ratio ς as a function of link lengths: (a) when Isomin=0 then ςmax=6.64, and the optimal link lengths are α = 80 deg and β = 40 deg and (b) when Isomin=0.5 then ςmax=6.55, and the optimal link lengths are α = 70 deg, β = 35 deg

Fig. 13

The top, front and side views of the four Raven IV arms (unit: mm): (a) top view, (b) front view, and (c) side view

Fig. 14

Cmax is plotted as a function of various base orientations (ϕx, ϕy, and ϕz)

## Errata

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