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End-Effector Contact and Force Detection for Miniature Autonomous Robots Performing Lunar and Expeditionary Surgery
Eric Psota1,2, Jay Carlson2, Priscila Rodrigues Armijo1,3
1Center for Advanced Surgical Technology, 986245 Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE, 69818-6245, USA.
Military Medicine
|January 27, 2021
Summary
Developing semi-autonomous surgical robots is crucial for space missions. These miniature robots can perform essential surgical tasks, improving medical capabilities beyond Earth and preparing for emergencies.
Area of Science:
- Robotics and Artificial Intelligence in Medicine
- Space Medicine and Exploration
- Surgical Automation
Background:
- The establishment of the U.S. Space Force and ambitious NASA/private missions necessitate advanced medical capabilities in space.
- Current space medicine relies on emergency 'life-raft' scenarios, highlighting a gap in surgical readiness for long-duration missions.
- A Role III equivalent medical facility, including surgical capabilities, is being considered for lunar surface stations.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop semi-autonomous capabilities in miniature surgical robots for space-based medical applications.
- To create low-mass, low-power robotic systems that can function as celestial replacements for terrestrial surgical robots.
- To advance task automation in surgical robotics, focusing on end-effector tissue interaction.
Main Methods:
- Development of two end-effector tissue interaction categories: visual feedback for contact detection and motor current waveform analysis for force measurement.
- Training a pixel-to-pixel deep neural network for contact/no-contact detection.
- Utilizing a long short-term memory (LSTM) recursive network for predicting torque during robotic surgery.
Main Results:
- Achieved nearly 90% accuracy in contact/no-contact detection using a deep neural network.
- Successfully predicted large torques with a trained LSTM network.
- Identified limitations in predicting small torques with the LSTM technique.
Conclusions:
- Human/machine teaming with semi-autonomous surgical robots is essential for long-duration space missions.
- Developed miniature robots are capable of performing critical surgical tasks, including hemostasis, fluid management, and suturing.
- Automated surgical robot capabilities are vital for preparing for emergency surgeries in space.
