Digital trainer developed for robotic assisted cardiac surgery.

Area of Science:

• Minimally Invasive Surgery
• Surgical Robotics
• Medical Simulation

Background:

• Robotic systems are increasingly used in cardiac surgery for minimally invasive procedures.
• Current training methods for surgical robotics rely on expensive animal models.
• Frequent upgrades of robotic systems necessitate continuous skill development and practice.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a new digital training method for surgical robotics in cardiac surgery.
• To enable realistic simulation of coronary artery bypass procedures on a beating heart.
• To integrate simulation with existing robotic systems without requiring additional haptic devices.

Main Methods:

• Developed new data structures and parametric geometry descriptions for surgical simulation.
• Integrated a digital trainer with existing robotic systems for coronary artery bypass grafting.
• Utilized the robotic master as the haptic feedback apparatus, eliminating the need for extra devices.
• Focused on real-time simulation of tissue mechanics, sutures, instruments, and bleeding.

Main Results:

• Demonstrated the feasibility of surgical simulation on a standard PC Linux system.
• Achieved real-time simulation of critical surgical elements including soft tissue dynamics.
• The developed system requires no additional haptic devices, leveraging the existing robotic master.

Conclusions:

• A novel digital simulation technology for robotic cardiac surgery is feasible on standard PCs.
• This approach offers a cost-effective and accessible training alternative to animal models.
• The technology is particularly beneficial for network-based simulations with limited bandwidth, especially for soft tissue dynamics.