Task Autonomous Medical Robot for Both Incision Stapling and Staples Removal

Surgical incision is a pervasive procedure in medical environments. Stapling is an incision closure method that is comparable to stitching. While incision closure is performed immediately after a surgery, staples are removed several weeks after the closure. The workload of surgeons and the probability of infections can be highly reduced if both stapling and staple removal procedures are accomplished by autonomous medical robots. This study proposes a medical robot system that can autonomously perform both the stapling of surgical incisions and the removal of staples after the stapled incision is healed. Individual module designs for stapling and removing staples are presented in detail. The modules were attached to an end-effector that was connected to the end joint of the manipulator. Based on binocular vision, a control method consisting of incision detection, staple position planning, and staple detection was developed to guide the robot to press the staples into a simulated piece of wounded skin and remove the staples from the same phantom. The experiments demonstrated that the prototypical robot effectively performed both stapling and staple removal tasks without human intervention.