A Unity-based Da Vinci Robot Simulator for Surgical Training

Abstract

The development of the Robot-Assisted Minimally Invasive Surgery (RAMIS) imposes an increasing demand for surgical training platforms, especially low-cost simulation-based surgical training through the creation of new open-source modules. For this goal, a da Vinci Surgical robot simulator based on Unity Physics Engine is developed. The simulator is integrated with da Vinci Research Kit (dVRK), robot kinematic models and multiple sensors. The Robot Operating System (ROS) interface is embedded for better integration with ROS based software components. The simulator can provide interactive information such as haptic feedback with master input devices. An application of a virtual fixture is implemented to test and verify the performance of the simulator. The results show that the simulator has high expansibility and support interactive training tasks well.