Close the Loop for Surgical Robot Haptic Control

Yangming Li and Blake Hannaford

BioRobotics Lab, University of Washington
Seattle, WA 98195
Background and Motivation
Haptic feedback is a critical but a clinically missing component in
robotic Minimally Invasive Surgeries. Although haptic research
made great progress, few of these research results were verified
on surgical robot or have impact on improving surgical
outcomes, due to the cost of obtaining and maintaining surgical
robots. In this study, we aim to construct the facility to address
this problem. To be specific, we aim to construct a two channel Fig. 3. Raven II & da Vinci Research Kit (dVRK).
position-force control loop between Raven II surgical robot and
Cockpit console, and model the relationship between control
Cockpit Console
precision, delay and haptic stability. Funded by NRI
1637444(Software Framework for Research in Semi- Fig. 4.Cockpit Console
Autonomous Teleoperation), we will open source these models with Force Feedback. The
total of 28 powered
and the Raven II simulator. We will also provide API and ROS
degrees of freedom of the
interface, so researchers can also remotely use physical robots console (12 for each
to verify their findings. hand, 3 for the foot pedal)

Method Overview
Raven Tool Gripping Force Perception
Sensor Measurement
Fig. 5.Raven II Gripper with 1-dimentional
Force Sensors (FSS015WNSB,
Honeywell).
Fig. 7. Improving Estimation
Precision and Robustness
Fig. 1 Two Port Bilateral Teleoperation System. Dynamic Model Based UKF Estimator[1] with Bounding Filter.
Construct a two-port bilateral teleoperation system with
Raven II and Cockpit Console;
Compare and model gripping force perception methods for
Raven II gripper;
Develop Raven Simulator, define API;
Model Cockpit Console control precision, force output Fig. 6. Estimator Architecture.
precision and delay factors; Gaussian Process Regression based Estimator[2]
Verify Raven Simulator with Cockpit console, model
relationship between communication delay and haptic
stability;
Inject noise and delay into the bilateral teleoperation system,
model relationship among various delay, control noise, force
noise and haptic stability, and add the model into the
simulator Fig. 8. GPR Estimator Architecture. Fig. 9. Estimation results have different
Release the API (including ROS interface) to the simulator, probabilistic properties.
and provide the access to the physical robot to researchers. Simulator Development & Remote Access to Raven II
NRI: Software Framework for Research in Model Raven II Dynamic and Representative Instruments;
Semi-Autonomous Teleoperation
Fig. 10. Raven Simulator.

Model Control Precision, Force Precision, Plant Delay, and

Communication Delay;
Model Verification (Compare with the physical system under
injected noise/delay); Space J: joint
C: cartesian
L: cartesian linear
API Verification (with Abs/Relativ A, : Absolute
respect to physical robot e D: Relative/delta
Use i for incremental position

and simulator) Type P: Position

I: incremental position
Release Source code V: Velocity (T: twist)
F or E: Effort (W: wrench)
Fig. 2. Project Outline. and API Control Direct stream: servo, direct. (real-time)
Interpolated stream: interp_servo, servo

level
NRI 1637789, 1637759 and 1637444 (2017~2021) Trajectory: move
PVT ~ ROS JointTrajectoryAction, vmove, traj, ...

[1] Y. Li, M. Miyasaka, M. Haghighipanah, Lei Cheng and B. Hannaford, "Dynamic modeling of cable driven
elongated surgical instruments for sensorless grip force estimation," 2016 IEEE International Conference on *note: Source code and instructions will be available at:
Robotics and Automation (ICRA), Stockholm, 2016, pp. 4128-4134.
[2] Y. Li and B. Hannaford, "Gaussian Process Regression for Sensorless Grip Force Estimation of Cable-Driven
The Project page: https://github.com/collaborative-robotics, and
Elongated Surgical Instruments," in IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 1312-1319, July BioRobotics Lab. source code page: https://github.com/uw-biorobotics
2017.