SURGICAL ROBOT AND METHOD OF CONTROLLING THE SAME

• US 20140276940A1
• Filed: 09/19/2013
• Published: 09/18/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 03/13/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. (Samsung Group)
• Original Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. (Samsung Group)
• Inventors: SEO, Kee Hong
• Granted Patent: US 9,314,309 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 606/130
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 2034/2065 Tracking using image or pattern recognition
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 34/30 Surgical robots
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 34/32 operating autonomously
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 34/37 Master-slave robots A61B34/35 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 90/30 Devices for illuminating a surgical field, the devices having an interrelation with other surgical devices or with a surgical procedure
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 90/361 Image-producing devices, e.g. surgical cameras
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 901/47 Optical

Abstract

Disclosed herein is a surgical robot including a slave device performing a surgical operation upon a patient and a master device controlling the surgical operation of the slave device. The slave device includes an image capture unit including a first lighting unit radiating visible light, a second lighting unit radiating UV light, and a camera capturing a visible-light image and a surgical tool coated with a UV reactive material emitting light in response to UV light radiated by the second lighting unit.

Claims

1. A surgical robot comprising a slave device adapted to perform a surgical operation upon a patient and a master device adapted to control the surgical operation of the slave device,

wherein the slave device comprises:

an image capture unit comprising a first lighting unit to radiate visible light, a second lighting unit to radiate UV light, and a camera to capture a visible-light image; and

a surgical tool coated with a UV reactive material adapted to emit light in response to UV light radiated by the second lighting unit.

2. The surgical robot according to claim 1, wherein the master device comprises a controller to control on/off operations of the first lighting unit and the second lighting unit.

3. The surgical robot according to claim 2, wherein:

the controller controls the on/off operations of each of the first lighting unit and the second lighting unit to alternately radiate light; and

a radiation time of the first lighting unit is longer than a radiation time of the second lighting unit.

4. The surgical robot according to claim 2, wherein:

the controller controls the on/off operation of the second lighting unit to continuously emit light and the on/off operation of the first lighting unit to periodically emit light at predetermined intervals; and

the first lighting unit has a radiation-on time longer than a radiation-off time.

5. The surgical robot according to claim 2, wherein:

the visible-light image comprises a first image acquired during visible light radiation and a second image acquired during UV radiation; and

the controller receives the first image and second image from the camera and calculates a position and direction of the surgical tool using the received first image and second image.

6. The surgical robot according to claim 5, wherein the slave device further comprises:

a position sensor mounted on each joint of a robot arm provided with the surgical tool to detect status information of the joint; and

a position calculator calculating the position and direction of the surgical tool using the status information of the joint detected by the position sensor,

wherein the controller receives information regarding the calculated position and direction of the surgical tool from the slave device and estimates a current position and direction of the surgical tool by combining the received information and the position and direction of the surgical tool calculated using the first image and the second image.

7. The surgical robot according to claim 5, wherein the controller receives the first image and the second image from the camera, separates the surgical tool from a background of the received first image through image processing, determines whether a shape and the position of the surgical tool of the first image in which the surgical tool is separated are identical to a shape and position of the surgical tool of the second image, and calculates the position and direction of the separated surgical tool of the first image when the shape and position are the same, or corrects the shape and position of the surgical tool of the first image to be identical to the shape and position of the surgical tool of the second image and calculates a position and direction of the surgical tool of the corrected first image when the shape and position are not the same.

8. The surgical robot according to claim 5, wherein:

the master device comprises a display unit to display the first image; and

the controller processes the first image and outputs the processed image to the display unit.

9. The surgical robot according to claim 8, wherein the controller outputs the first image acquired immediately before the second lighting unit is turned on to the display unit while only the second lighting unit is turned on.

10. The surgical robot according to claim 1, wherein:

the UV reactive material is coated on a portion of the surgical tool; and

the coated UV reactive material has a predetermined shape.

11. The surgical robot according to claim 1, wherein:

the UV reactive material is coated on a plurality of portions of the surgical tool.

12. The surgical robot according to claim 1, wherein the UV reactive material is coated on an entire surface of the surgical tool.

13. A method of controlling a surgical robot comprising a slave device performing a surgical operation upon a patient and a master device controlling the surgical operation of the slave device, the method comprising:

performing the surgical operation by inserting a surgical tool coated with a UV reactive material into a patient'"'"'s body;

radiating visible light and UV light into the patient'"'"'s body;

acquiring a first image during visible light radiation and a second image during UV radiation; and

calculating a position and a direction of the surgical tool using the acquired first image and second image.

14. The method according to claim 13, wherein the radiating of the visible light and the UV light is performed by alternately radiating visible light and UV light, and a visible light radiation time is longer than a UV radiation time.

15. The method according to claim 13, wherein the radiating of the visible light and the UV light is performed by continuously radiating UV light and periodically radiating visible light at predetermined intervals, and a radiation-on time of the visible light is longer than a radiation-off time of the visible light.

16. The method according to claim 13, wherein:

the first image comprises a surgical tool, an organ, and peripheral tissue, and the second image comprises the surgical tool without the organ and the peripheral tissue; and

the calculating of the position and the direction of the surgical tool comprises;

separating the surgical tool from a background of the first image;

determining whether a shape and a position of the surgical tool of the first image in which the surgical tool is separated are identical to a shape and a position of the surgical tool of the second image; and

calculating the position and direction of the separated surgical tool of the first image when the shape and position are the same, or correcting the shape and position of the surgical tool of the first image to be identical to the shape and position of the surgical tool of the second image and calculating a position and direction of the surgical tool of the corrected first image when the shape and position are not the same.

17. The method according to claim 16, wherein the separating of the surgical tool from a background of the first image is performed using a pre-defined shape of the surgical tool.

18. The method according to claim 13, further comprising:

receiving information regarding the position and direction of the surgical tool from the slave device; and

estimating a final current position and direction of the surgical tool by combining information regarding the position and direction of the surgical tool received from the slave device and the position and direction of the surgical tool calculated using the first image and the second image,

after the calculating of the position and direction of the surgical tool using the acquired first image and second image.

19. The method according to claim 18, wherein the information regarding the position and direction of the surgical tool received from the slave device is calculated by the slave device by detecting the status of motion of a joint of a robot arm provided with the surgical tool.

20. The method according to claim 13, wherein the calculating of the position and direction of the surgical tool using the acquired first image and second image comprises processing the first image and displaying the processed image on the display unit of the master device.