Intuitive User Interfaces for Surgical Robots and Tools

The ever increasing amount of equipment used in the operating room asks for ergonomic and intuitive user interfaces. Traditionally, surgeons control their devices by giving commands to the operative nurse or assistant - but with introduction of surgical robotics this classical setup is changing and the control is returning more and more to the surgeon. The proposed project aims to investigate new ways for intuitive control of active devices (e.g. surgical robots, but also active tools with several "degrees of freedom") with particular focus on multi-modality, robustness under realistic clinical conditions, practicability under real use conditions and fault tolerance. The project also investigates different levels of autonomy for surgical robots - i.e. fully autonomous operation vs semi-autonomous operation (e.g. "shared control", "hands-on", etc) vs fully manual operation and discusses pro's and con's for selected applications.

Project work starts with analysis of HMI-solutions in medical area - but also in similar areas like rehabilitation, or service and care - and identifies transferrable concepts. Main project results include a set of prototypes for intuitive, multi-modal user interfaces for selected applications as well as a summary of the project findings in a final report for "Guidelines for HMI for surgical robots and tools".