Optimal motion control for teleoperated surgical robots

Abstract

This paper addresses the problem of optimal motion control for teleoperated surgical robots, which must maneuver in constrained workspaces. The control problem is determining how best to use the available degrees of freedom (DOF) of a surgical robot to accomplish a particular task, while respecting geometric constraints on the work volume, robot mechanism, and the specific task requirements. We present a method of formulating desired motions in the task space (task space goals) as instances of a quadratic optimization problem, optionally subject to additional linear constraints. The control formalism applies both to kinematically deficient as well as kinematically redundant mechanisms. Specifically, we discuss the problem as it relates to a representative set of tasks in teleoperated navigation of a laparoscopic camera attached to a surgical robot.