ERC: Engineering Research Center for Computer-Integrated Surgical Systems and Technology (NSF Grant# 9731748)

摘要: This report summarizes our three-month research experience in Munich, Germany under the NSF IREE program. The goal of our project under this program is to develop a stand-alone actuation and control unit for the da Vinci Surgical System’s EndoWrist instruments. The developed device serves as a platform for the development of new da Vinci surgical instruments and surgical procedures using existing instruments without the master robots. The joint effort from MIMED (TUM) and CISST-ERC (JHU) resulted in an inexpensive software and hardware solution that is easily replicated, and can be used in surgical environment for instrumentation research. We hope that this platform will lead to future collaboration between the two research centers and other surgical robotics research teams.