Portable surgery master station for mobile robotic telesurgery

Abstract

We describe a system that provides a low-cost, portable control station for experimentation in mobile robotic telesurgery. The software and hardware implementation of our system are described in detail. The device mapping between the Haptic Interface Devices (HID) and the surgical robot that enable the surgeon to effectively teleoperate the surgical robot are explained along with our communication protocols for telesurgery. We have also provided our initial results from extensive field testing of our system in different hardware and software configurations and challenging locations. We focus on working under sub-optimal network conditions for field operation in remote environments, and the importance of interoperability and distribution among networked surgical technologies.