Research on innovative mechatronic tools and systems for surgical procedures involving soft tissues

Concerns the control of invasive surgical tools relative to deforming tissues. The solutions deal with the controlled penetration of tissue interfaces, tissue discrimination methods and the control of tissue position. Interpretation methods require anticipation of the deformation behaviour of frames and use features that are characteristic of the sensory data to achieve this. Automated interpretation of state enables automatic selection and scaling of tool strategy. It is shown through the study that reference models can be used successfully to determine the state in such complex working environments and, in addition, that neural networks can also be applied to achieve the same goals. In the latter case unique methods for learning from a minimal data set have been developed and implemented. The project has provided significant leads in this research field and provides the potential to deploy mechatronics tools to a wide range of precision surgical procedures. In most situations when a tool approaches a target position in the body the deflection or deformation of tissues under tool action is significant and is often unacceptable for quality results. It is known that scanners operate with great precision and the results of this project offer techniques to control tool movement to a similar working accuracy whilst taking into account movement of tissue. The article presents mechatronic systems for 4 surgical procedures.