Development of a flexible imaging probe integrated to a surgical telerobot system: Preliminary remote control test and probe design

Abstract

This work presents the current state of a project that aims to develop a new level of integration within the control of networked surgical telerobotics and to evaluate the capabilities of communication to support hardware and software architectures over Internet. The project will integrate a portable working prototype of a flexible, multi-bending imaging device to RAVEN, a 7-DOF cable-actuated surgical robot developed by the Biorobotics Laboratory at the University of Washington, USA. A preliminary test of remote operation from Qatar University in Doha to the RAVEN robot in Seattle, US, is presented as well as details concerning the design and implementation of a first prototype of the flexible endoscope.