Accelerating Surgical Robotics Research: A Review of 10 Years With the da Vinci Research Kit

TL;DR

This paper reviews a decade of research facilitated by the da Vinci Research Kit, highlighting its role in advancing surgical robotics and identifying future challenges for the community.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive classification of research efforts using the dVRK and discusses key challenges to sustain and expand its impact.

Findings

dVRK enabled diverse surgical robotics research over 10 years

Classification of research efforts reveals major focus areas

Identifies challenges and needs for future development

Abstract

Robotic-assisted surgery is now well-established in clinical practice and has become the gold standard clinical treatment option for several clinical indications. The field of robotic-assisted surgery is expected to grow substantially in the next decade with a range of new robotic devices emerging to address unmet clinical needs across different specialities. A vibrant surgical robotics research community is pivotal for conceptualizing such new systems as well as for developing and training the engineers and scientists to translate them into practice. The da Vinci Research Kit (dVRK), an academic and industry collaborative effort to re-purpose decommissioned da Vinci surgical systems (Intuitive Surgical Inc, CA, USA) as a research platform for surgical robotics research, has been a key initiative for addressing a barrier to entry for new research groups in surgical robotics. In this paper, we present an extensive review of the publications that have been facilitated by the dVRK over the past decade. We classify research efforts into different categories and outline some of the major challenges and needs for the robotics community to maintain this initiative and build upon it.