Technologies for a telesurgery laboratory implementation

Abstract

This chapter describes the telerobotic surgery developments and technologies involved in the implementation of a telesurgery research laboratory. These developments cover from communications software, with real-time audio and video transmission, to the use of a dual bilateral master-slave teleoperation system, with force-feedback, considering also the use of existing tools. As it will be described, one of the special characteristics of this system, that makes it different from other commercial approaches, is that it may be able to replace the local surgeon, with a standard surgical equipment and non stereoscopic commercial cameras, handled by a custom robot, and standard surgical tools handled by industrial manipulators. This characteristics make it accessible from small laboratories or research groups. © 2007 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.