Presentation
Human Factors Impacts of High-Latency Telesurgery: A Study on the Effects of Latency and Motion Scaling
SessionRobotics Summit - Session 4
DescriptionThis presentation will discuss a telesurgery experiment that studied the effects of latency and motion scaling on surgeon performance. This work builds upon a technology demonstration conducted aboard the International Space Station (ISS) that studied robotic telesurgery. A miniature surgical robot (“SpaceMIRA”) was controlled remotely by surgeons on Earth to complete simulated surgical tasks through a live network connection with the ISS. Round-trip latency was measured at 800 ms. This value was used for stimulated latency for the telesurgery experiment. The device used for these experiments is a research version of a commercially-available robot that has recently obtained Market Authorization from the FDA.
A pre-study was conducted with one of the surgeons who participated in the ISS experiment, replicating the surgical exercises completed on the ISS. This data informed the design of this experiment; it was observed that surgeons adapted quickly to changing conditions (such as the introduction of latency and motion scaling factors). Therefore, a Latin Rectangle with Residual Effects experiment was designed to isolate the effects of motion scaling and latency and account for the surgeon’s ability to learn and adapt.
For the testing procedure, six surgeons were instructed to follow a specific sequence of cutting rubber bands (tissue simulant) on the robot’s task board. The rubber bands were prepared in the exact same way for each trial. This sequence was performed three times by each surgeon (experimental unit), once with no latency and no motion scaling, once with no latency and 4:1 motion scaling, and once with latency set to 800 ms and 4:1 motion scaling (treatments). Each surgeon was randomly assigned the sequence in which the trials were performed (based on the Latin Rectangle w/ Residual Effects study design) to account for the effect of surgeon learning over successive tasks. Data on robot and surgeon performance was recorded concurrently with the experiment activities.
This data will be synthesized to calculate several metrics from each trial: overall teleoperation time (operative time), overall clutch time (ancillary motions of the hand controllers), and economy of motion (efficient use of robot actions). Analysis of variance (ANOVA) will be used to determine the impacts of each treatment (latency and motion scaling) on these metrics.
A pre-study was conducted with one of the surgeons who participated in the ISS experiment, replicating the surgical exercises completed on the ISS. This data informed the design of this experiment; it was observed that surgeons adapted quickly to changing conditions (such as the introduction of latency and motion scaling factors). Therefore, a Latin Rectangle with Residual Effects experiment was designed to isolate the effects of motion scaling and latency and account for the surgeon’s ability to learn and adapt.
For the testing procedure, six surgeons were instructed to follow a specific sequence of cutting rubber bands (tissue simulant) on the robot’s task board. The rubber bands were prepared in the exact same way for each trial. This sequence was performed three times by each surgeon (experimental unit), once with no latency and no motion scaling, once with no latency and 4:1 motion scaling, and once with latency set to 800 ms and 4:1 motion scaling (treatments). Each surgeon was randomly assigned the sequence in which the trials were performed (based on the Latin Rectangle w/ Residual Effects study design) to account for the effect of surgeon learning over successive tasks. Data on robot and surgeon performance was recorded concurrently with the experiment activities.
This data will be synthesized to calculate several metrics from each trial: overall teleoperation time (operative time), overall clutch time (ancillary motions of the hand controllers), and economy of motion (efficient use of robot actions). Analysis of variance (ANOVA) will be used to determine the impacts of each treatment (latency and motion scaling) on these metrics.
Authors
Chief Medical Officer
David B. and Nancy K. Lederer Professor of Engineering
Event Type
TimeSunday, March 222:45pm - 3:15pm EDT
LocationMurray Hill