Minimally Invasive Surgeries have been on the rise since the early 1980s and have developed into several forms of Minimal Access Surgeries. Since the amount of anatomical impact is considerably less than open procedures, the principles of such Minimal Access Surgeries have recently been used in intra-uterine fetal procedures. However, these procedures are associated with several difficulties that arise from minimal access, such as decreased visualization, anatomical orientation, precision and force transmission. A combination of micro endoscopy and ultrasound has been widely used to aid the surgeon's perception of anatomical orientation. But the inaccuracies due to the inherent principles of ultrasound and the narrow field of view limit the orientation, perception and anatomical relationship and therefore, can impact the surgical outcome. While handling fragile anatomical structures, the perception of force can be of prime importance which can be limited by the narrow size of the instruments used. Also, the lack of feedback from the instruments used could result in un-noticed overshoot.This project proposed a new robotic surgery system to solve the problems in Minimal Access Fetal Surgeries by improving the perception of visualization, orientation and force feedback. The proposed system is comprised of, a new robotic fetoscope with haptic feedback, integrated with a tracking and navigation system and a complete software environment. Five experiments were performed to evaluate the efficacy of the proposed robotic surgery system in terms of orientation accuracy, dexterity, the time taken for the procedure, force feedback and the effectiveness and implementation of safety parameters of overshoot protection in surgical assistance. The results of the experiments demonstrated a better efficacy can be achieved by using the proposed tracking and navigation system in combination with the robotic equipment. As the proposed system can give the surgeon the positional orientation, precise controls and a better perception of the entire surgery, it is hoped that further improvements in hardware and software user interface can lead to a surgeon friendly system which can save numerous lives in the near future.
| Date of Award | 25 Oct 2018 |
|---|
| Original language | English |
|---|
| Awarding Institution | - University Of Strathclyde
|
|---|
| Sponsors | University of Strathclyde |
|---|
| Supervisor | Wei Yao (Supervisor) & Philip Rowe (Supervisor) |
|---|