SPRK: A Low-Cost Stewart Platform For Motion Study In Surgical Robotics
This provides an affordable tool for motion study in surgical robotics, but it is incremental as it adapts existing Stewart platform technology to a specific domain.
The researchers tackled the problem of simulating body organ motion for surgical robotics by designing a low-cost, miniaturized Stewart platform called SPRK, which costs $250 and achieves positional control with root-mean-square errors of 1.22 mm, 1.07 mm, and 0.20 mm in x, y, and z directions.
To simulate body organ motion due to breathing, heart beats, or peristaltic movements, we designed a low-cost, miniaturized SPRK (Stewart Platform Research Kit) to translate and rotate phantom tissue. This platform is 20cm x 20cm x 10cm to fit in the workspace of a da Vinci Research Kit (DVRK) surgical robot and costs $250, two orders of magnitude less than a commercial Stewart platform. The platform has a range of motion of +/- 1.27 cm in translation along x, y, and z directions and has motion modes for sinusoidal motion and breathing-inspired motion. Modular platform mounts were also designed for pattern cutting and debridement experiments. The platform's positional controller has a time-constant of 0.2 seconds and the root-mean-square error is 1.22 mm, 1.07 mm, and 0.20 mm in x, y, and z directions respectively. All the details, CAD models, and control software for the platform is available at github.com/BerkeleyAutomation/sprk.