Evaluation of (Shared) Autonomy in Robot-Assisted Vitreoretinal Surgery Using a Surgical Model

Abstract

Background: Robot-assisted vitreoretinal surgery makes it easier for the surgeons to perform precise and dexterous manipulations required in vitreoretinal procedures.

Methods: We systematically evaluated manual surgery, conventional two-hand teleoperation, a novel one-hand teleoperation, and automation in a needle positioning task using a realistic surgical eye model, measuring the expert surgeon's performances and the novice's learning curves.

Results: The proposed one-hand teleoperation improved the positioning accuracy of expert surgeons , enabled novices to achieve a consistent accuracy more quickly , decreased the novice's workload more quickly , and made it easier for novices to learn to conduct the task quickly . Moreover, our autonomous positioning achieved an equivalent accuracy to the surgeons.

Conclusions: The benefits and potential of task autonomy were shown. Further work is needed to evaluate the proposed methods in a more complex task.

Keywords: bimanual; kinematics; teleoperation.