Volume 5, Number 2 March/April 1997
Technology Transfer
NEW ROBOTIC-ASSISTED SURGICAL SYSTEM
will enable doctors to perform delicate operations to the eye, ear, spine, heart and brain
with greater dexterity. NASA and Dr. Steve Charles of MicroDexterity Systems, Memphis,
Tennessee, co-developed Robotic-Assisted MicroSurgery (RAMS).
Charles originated the concept of a telerobotic system as a tool to assist the microsurgeon. However, Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) engineers developed RAMS based on surgical requirements provided by Charles and using previously developed NASA telerobotics technology. Many new innovations have been developed under the RAMS task. "This system will put surgeons on the same playing field. The system will allow a whole subset of people who do not have the physical dexterity to perform surgery to stay in the game. It's a dexterity enhancer," Charles said. JPL's Tom Hamilton added, "RAMS takes the most skilled surgeon and makes his or her skills better. RAMS can improve surgical techniques to allow faster and safer procedures."
| JPL and MicroDexterity Systems are developing a robotic microsurgery device with important implications for such delicate surgeries as eye and brain. The device uses computer-compensated motion control to dramatically reduce the effects of operator muscle tremor. |  |
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Charles said RAMS augments surgical dexterity the same way a microscope improves a surgeon's vision during an operating room procedure. The primary control mode of RAMS is teleoperation, in which the operator's hand motions are transferred by a sophisticated joystick-like hand-controlled device. The new system has features that enhance a surgeon's manual positioning and tracking. RAMS will help a surgeon overcome involuntary jerks and hand tremors, which can limit a doctor's fine-motion skills.
RAMS will allow relative positioning of surgical tools within 20 millionths of a meter. The technology will enable the surgeon to range freely over a continuous work space as large as a cubic inch. Surgeons would be able to scale down their hand motions as much as 5 to 10 times and perform new procedures in critical areas such as the retina and ear. JPL officials said RAMS will enable surgeons to operate at unprecedented small scales. Those capabilities will include force-reflection and textural feedback.
Potential NASA applications include extra- and intravehicular activity telescience, bioprocessing, material process assembly and micromechanical assembly. It may also have Space Station-related applications in biomedicine, Hamilton said.
The first element of the RAMS work station is being tested now. It is a six-degrees-of-freedom surgical robot or slave made up of a torso-shoulder-elbow body with a three-axis wrist. The robot manipulator is about 10 inches long and 1 inch in diameter. This portion was developed in 1984 at JPL. The slave holds and positions the surgical tool. The master unit was developed in 1995 and feeds instruction to the slave device. The unit also can measure the surgeon's range of motion.
Actual clinical testing of the system will begin this spring. MicroDexterity Systems will commercialize the system following the testing of RAMS in the operating room, Charles said.
For more information, contact Tom Hamilton at Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Call 818/354-7344.
Or contact Dr. Steve Charles at MicroDexterity Systems, Inc. Call 901/767-6662.
Please mention you read about it in Innovation.
