Roadmap to Autonomous Surgery -- A Framework to Surgical Autonomy

TL;DR

This paper presents a comprehensive framework and checklist for advancing surgical automation in robotic surgery, highlighting current challenges and necessary technological progress.

Contribution

It introduces a structured roadmap and feature checklist to guide the development of higher levels of surgical autonomy.

Findings

Identifies key features needed for surgical automation

Provides a checklist to facilitate automation progress

Discusses current challenges and future advances

Abstract

Robotic surgery has increased the domain of surgeries possible. Several examples of partial surgical automation have been seen in the past decade. We break down the path of automation tasks into features required and provide a checklist that can help reach higher levels of surgical automation. Finally, we discuss the current challenges and advances required to make this happen.