Plugfest 2009: Global Interoperability in Telerobotics and Telemedicine

Abstract

Despite the great diversity of teleoperator designs and applications, their underlying control systems have many similarities. These similarities can be exploited to enable inter-operability between heterogeneous systems. We have developed a network data specification, the Interoperable Telerobotics Protocol, that can be used for Internet based control of a wide range of teleoperators. In this work we test interoperable telerobotics on the global Internet, focusing on the telesurgery application domain. Fourteen globally dispersed telerobotic master and slave systems were connected in thirty trials in one twenty four hour period. Users performed common manipulation tasks to demonstrate effective master-slave operation. With twenty eight (93%) successful, unique connections the results show a high potential for standardizing telerobotic operation. Furthermore, new paradigms for telesurgical operation and training are presented, including a networked surgery trainer and upper-limb exoskeleton control of micro-manipulators.

Listing 1

C implementation of the binary packet structure sent from master to slave robot.

Fig. 1

(A) TUM general purpose Telerobot. (B) Patient-side robot of the JHU custom version of the da Vinci. (C) TokyoTech IBIS IV surgical robot. (D) RPI VBLaST™. (E) SRI M7 surgical robot. (F) UW Raven surgical robot.

Fig. 2

(A, B, C) Phantom Omni control station with free software at RPI, ICL and UW respectively. (D) TUM ViSHaRD7. (E) UCSC Exoskeleton. (F) Phantom Premium with custom software at KUT. (G) Master console of the JHU custom version of the daVinci. (H) TokyoTech delta master.

Fig. 3

The Telerobotic FLS block transfer task.

Fig. 4

Number of blocks transferred in each master-slave trial, and ping response times in parenthesis. ^*Ping times not taken. ^**Block transfer task completion time. ^†One-handed operation only.