Continuous Transitions between Levels of Autonomy based on Virtual Fixtures for Surgical Robotic Systems

Abstract

Nowadays, telemanipulation robotic systems are present in many operating rooms. The exploitation of autonomy for minimally invasive robotic surgery remains an open field of research as it is non-trivial to provide meaningful assistance. This work presents a novel virtual fixture providing haptic augmentation for shared control as well as task-level autonomy, while ensuring continuous transitions of control between the robotic system and the surgeon. Transitions between levels of autonomy are based on information about the robotic system and its environment. The proposed method is evaluated through experiments which show the successful completion of surgeon training tasks, namely peg transfer and suturing, exploiting shared control and task-level autonomy.