Optimal Needle Diameter, Shape, and Path in Autonomous Suturing
This work addresses tissue trauma in autonomous suturing for surgical robotics, representing an incremental improvement in optimizing needle parameters.
The paper tackled the problem of optimizing needle diameter, shape, and path to minimize tissue trauma in autonomous suturing, resulting in a path planning algorithm that guarantees minimal trauma and complies with suturing requirements, as confirmed experimentally with the Raven II surgical system.
Needle shape, diameter, and path are critical parameters that directly affect suture depth and tissue trauma in autonomous suturing. This paper presents an optimization-based approach to specify these parameters. Given clinical suturing guidelines, a kinematic model of needle-tissue interaction was developed to quantify suture parameters and constraints. The model was further used to formulate constant curvature needle path planning as a nonlinear optimization problem. The optimization results were confirmed experimentally with the Raven II surgical system. The proposed needle path planning algorithm guarantees minimal tissue trauma and complies with a wide range of suturing requirements.