Design and Evaluation of a Surgical Tool Drive Unit for Sustainable Training in Robot-Assisted Minimally Invasive Surgery

The integration of robotic technology in surgical interventions, particularly in Robotic-Assisted Minimally Inva-sive Surgery (RAMIS), is increasingly recognized as a pivotal application within the medical domain. With the objective of addressing the need to reduce the carbon footprint of medical devices and the need to facilitate access to training for RAMIS in realistic scenarios, we propose an alternative recovery scheme for surgical tools employing a nonspecific Surgical Tool Drive Unit (STDU) that aims to connect any given tool to any robot manipulator. The paper also discusses strategies to mitigate the decrease in performance of repurposed tools, specifically focusing on issues such as tendon backlash and coupling. The performance of the STDU with repurposed tools is validated through various experiments, including assessments of repeatability, backlash compensation, and realistic surgery scenarios such as suturing and pick-and-place tasks. These experiments are conducted using a pre-defined trajectory and a remote haptic console.