Shared autonomy in surgical robotics

This project aims to develop a shared autonomy framework for surgical robotic systems to enable faster and safer surgical procedures.

Sharing workspace between a surgeon and a robotic system poses various challenges, such as

(1) allocation of tasks to the human operator and the robotic system.

(2) management of shared workspace to ensure collision-free operation.

(3) safe hand-off between the human operator and robotic system.

To achieve shared autonomy, the autonomous robot operation must not hinder the human operator

e.g. while the robotic system could dissect the tissue, the human operator should be able to perform another task (e.g, suturing) in the same workspace.