Design and implementation of a wireless instrument adapter

TL;DR

This paper presents a lightweight, adaptable instrument adapter for robotic surgical systems, enabling precise calibration and motion control testing of EndoWrist instruments in minimally invasive surgery research.

Contribution

It introduces a novel, easy-to-mount instrument adapter with calibration procedures, addressing the need for realistic, controlled testing environments in surgical robotics.

Findings

Calibration shows instruments require individual adjustment.

System exhibits non-linear behavior and motor hysteresis effects.

Pose repeatability has an RMSE of 0.27° for rotation.

Abstract

The evaluation of new methods for control and manipulation in minimally invasive robotic surgery requires a realistic setup. To decouple the evaluation of methods from overall clinical systems, we propose an instrument adapter for the S line EndoWrist\c{opyright} instruments of the da Vinci surgical system. The adapter is small and lightweight and can be mounted to any robot to mimic motion. We describe its design and implementation, as well as a setup to calibrate instruments to study precise motion control. Our results indicate that each instrument requires individual calibration. The calibration shows that the system is not fully linear. The repeatability of poses in the same sense of rotation has an RMSE of 0.27{\deg}/ and a standard deviation below 0.3{\deg} for pitching and 4.7{\deg} for yawing averaged over three measurements. When comparing the same poses in clockwise and counter-clockwise direction the RMSE is 12.8{\deg} and 5.7{\deg} for pitching and yawing, respectively. This is likely due to motor hysteresis.