A comparison of onboard and offboard user interfaces for handheld robots

As surgical robotics are made progressively smaller, and their actuation systems simplified, the opportunity arises to re-evaluate how we integrate them into operating room workflows. Over the past few years, several research groups have shown that robots can be made so small and light that they can become hand-held tools, in contrast to the prevailing commercial paradigm of surgical robots being large multi-arm floor-mounted systems that must be remotely teleoperated. This hand-held paradigm enables robots to fit much more seamlessly into existing clinical workflows, and as such, these new robots need to be paired with similarly compact user interfaces. It also gives rise to a new area of user interface research, exploring how the surgeon can simultaneously control the position and orientation of the overall system, while also simultaneously controlling small robotic manipulators that maneuver dexterously at the tip. In this paper, we compare an onboard user interface mounted directly to the robotic platform against the traditional offboard user interface positioned away from the robot. In the latter, the surgeon positions the robot, and a support arm holds it in place while the surgeon operates the manipulators using the offboard surgeon console. The surgeon can move back and forth between the robot and the console as often as desired. Three experiments were conducted, and results show that the onboard interface enables statistically significantly faster performance in a point-touching task performed in a virtual environment.