Related papers: Toward Synergic Learning for Autonomous Manipulati…
Tissue manipulation is a frequently used fundamental subtask of any surgical procedures, and in some cases it may require the involvement of a surgeon's assistant. The complex dynamics of soft tissue as an unstructured environment is one of…
In robotic surgery, pattern cutting through a deformable material is a challenging research field. The cutting procedure requires a robot to concurrently manipulate a scissor and a gripper to cut through a predefined contour trajectory on…
Indirect simultaneous positioning (ISP), where internal tissue points are placed at desired locations indirectly through the manipulation of boundary points, is a type of subtask frequently performed in robotic surgeries. Although…
Goal: A limitation in robotic surgery is the lack of force feedback, due to challenges in suitable sensing techniques. To enhance the perception of the surgeons and precise force rendering, estimation of these forces along with tissue…
In various surgical procedures, regions of interest (ROIs) such as organs or lesions are often occluded by overlying tissues, requiring surgeons to achieve adequate exposure for precise intervention. However, the irregular geometry,…
We explore whether surgical manipulation tasks can be learned on the da Vinci robot via imitation learning. However, the da Vinci system presents unique challenges which hinder straight-forward implementation of imitation learning. Notably,…
The control and task automation of robotic surgical system is very challenging, especially in soft tissue manipulation, due to the unpredictable deformations. Thus, an accurate simulator of soft tissues with the ability of interacting with…
Reinforcement learning holds the promise of enabling autonomous robots to learn large repertoires of behavioral skills with minimal human intervention. However, robotic applications of reinforcement learning often compromise the autonomy of…
Dexterous manipulation requires careful reasoning over extrinsic contacts. The prevalence of deforming tools in human environments, the use of deformable sensors, and the increasing number of soft robots yields a need for approaches that…
In the context of surgery, robots can provide substantial assistance by performing small, repetitive tasks such as suturing, needle exchange, and tissue retraction, thereby enabling surgeons to concentrate on more complex aspects of the…
Robotic manipulation has made significant advancements, with systems demonstrating high precision and repeatability. However, this remarkable precision often fails to translate into efficient manipulation of thin deformable objects. Current…
Robotic fabric manipulation is challenging due to the infinite dimensional configuration space, self-occlusion, and complex dynamics of fabrics. There has been significant prior work on learning policies for specific deformable manipulation…
Automation holds the potential to assist surgeons in robotic interventions, shifting their mental work load from visuomotor control to high level decision making. Reinforcement learning has shown promising results in learning complex…
When humans perform contact-rich manipulation tasks, customized tools are often necessary to simplify the task. For instance, we use various utensils for handling food, such as knives, forks and spoons. Similarly, robots may benefit from…
Robotic automation in surgery requires precise tracking of surgical tools and mapping of deformable tissue. Previous works on surgical perception frameworks require significant effort in developing features for surgical tool and tissue…
Surgical automation has the capability to improve the consistency of patient outcomes and broaden access to advanced surgical care in underprivileged communities. Shared autonomy, where the robot automates routine subtasks while the surgeon…
Skilled robotic manipulation benefits from complex synergies between non-prehensile (e.g. pushing) and prehensile (e.g. grasping) actions: pushing can help rearrange cluttered objects to make space for arms and fingers; likewise, grasping…
Accurate deformable object manipulation (DOM) is essential for achieving autonomy in robotic surgery, where soft tissues are being displaced, stretched, and dissected. Many DOM methods can be powered by simulation, which ensures realistic…
Previous soft tissue manipulation studies assumed that the grasping point was known and the target deformation can be achieved. During the operation, the constraints are supposed to be constant, and there is no obstacles around the soft…
To date, the simulation of organ deformations for applications like therapy planning or image-guided interventions is calculated by solving the elastodynamics equations. While efficient solvers have been proposed for fast simulations,…