A “pickup” stereoscopic camera with visual-motor aligned control for the da Vinci surgical system: a preliminary study

Purpose The current state-of-the-art surgical robotic systems use only a single endoscope to view the surgical field. Research has been conducted to introduce additional cameras to the surgical system, giving rise to new camera angles that cannot be achieved using the endoscope alone. While this additional visualization certainly aids in surgical performance, current systems lack visual-motor compatibility with respect to the additional camera views. We propose a new system that overcomes this limitation. Methods In this paper, we introduce a novel design of an additional “pickup” camera that can be integrated into the da Vinci Surgical System. We also introduce a solution to work comfortably in the various arbitrary views this camera provides by eliminating visual-motor misalignment. This is done by changing the working frame of the surgical instruments to work with respect to the coordinate system at the “pickup” camera instead of the endoscope. Results Human user trials ( N=14 ) were conducted to evaluate the effect of visual-motor alignment with respect to the “pickup” camera on surgical performance. An inanimate surgical peg transfer task from the validated Fundamentals of Laparoscopic Surgery (FLS) Training Curriculum was used, and an improvement of 73