A laparoscopic robot with intuitive interface for gynecological laser laparoscopy

The aim of this research is to apply a laparoscopic robot to improve and facilitate the procedures of laser laparoscopy performed by gynecological surgeons. We took advantages of the existing laparoscopic robot and made digitizer tablet and wireless pen as intuitive interface for this particular purpose. The What-You-Draw-is-What-You-Cut (WYDIWYC) control scheme provide surgeons a natural interface to perform laser ablation as he is sketching by pen. The auto-focus functionality helps surgeons to focus the laser automatically by an laparoscopic distance sensor. Some safety measures are installed in DSP controller. The accuracy of the robot is examined by a sinusoidal test and is more than the demand in laser laparoscopy. The simplicity of usage of the intuitive writing interface is demonstrated by a volunteer and shows the excellent results by cutting on an apple. Some considerations for safety issues are discussed in this paper.