Objectives:

• to understand the technical and procedural difficulties of two significant robot-assisted surgical procedures in the areas of pancreatic and vascular surgery
• identify their accuracy, execution and perception requirements
• develop two benchmark tests to demonstrate the capabilities of new tools for robot-assisted surgery
• validate patient safety of the tools with phantom and animal tests

• Analysis of the pre-operative and intra-operative modeling methods, on satisfying the specific 3D reconstruction needs of existing surgical procedures in the two areas of abdominal and vascular surgery.
• Extend MSM to pancreas and vessels.
• Develop new tools for those surgical procedures that have limited computer-assisted support.
• Develop necessary benchmarks to assess image quality.
• Develop on-line segmentation algorithms for different hardware and software sensing methods.
• Rendering and GPU acceleration of CPU methods.

• Develop a system combining intra-operative navigation with robotics to assist abdominal and cardiovascular surgery.
• Plan the operating procedure with the models of WP2.
• Give quantitative data on abdominal organ and blood vessels.
• Integration of anatomical and physiological data into a single tool.
• Compute overall accuracy of the plan and propose the surgeon possible intervention strategies.
• Provide an accurate and complete input to the surgical robot.
• Develop process monitoring software to allow the complete data workflow (traceability of the instruments, proper instrumentation set).

• to specify an architecture for OR sensing for patient ́s model update and monitoring
• to develope a sensor model in order to describe the functionality and physical conditions
• to establish an offline model checking to compare the sensor capabilities to pre- or intra-operative planning requirements
• to establish a consistency check extending model checking to the intra-operative intervention
• to fuse sensor data and images for sensing and monitoring purposes
• to implement and test a monitoring system
• implement and test a monitoring system

• Develop the Robotic System Simulator (RSS) for minimally invasive robotic surgery (MIRS). The RSS will consist of the Robot Simulators and the
• Application Control.
• Develop the Robot Simulator that will include the Robot Dynamics Models and Robot Sensor/Actuator Models and two interfaces.
• Develop the Application Control of the workflow for a certain application, including closed-loop control algorithms.
• Develop a comprehensive Interface Definition.

• Assess surgeon’s skills/accuracy, specific action/perception sequences and limits and haptic teleoperator safety.
• Evaluate effects of stereovision and 3D display on surgeon’s accuracy and patient safety
• Develop the surgeon workstation features:
• adequate haptic feedback to the surgeon for diagnostic and control purposes;
• stability and transparency with respect to heterogeneous environments;
• 3D displaying of surgical interface:
  
  • active guidance and tremor filtering;
  • ergonomic specifications to reduce the workload of the surgeon

• Develop evidence-based robotic surgical training curricula.
• Identify knowledge required in training programs for focusing on patient safety.
• Implement several test-beds for teaching skills-, role-, and knowledge-based behaviors.
• Make the training curricula operational to prove their efficiency
• Provide feedback for the development of the robotic simulator and user interface.

• Dissemination towards legislative bodies to prepare ground for new safety standards of surgical robots.
• Dissemination activities approaching different target public: industrial, academic, educational and wider public

The project management work-package is responsible for the co-ordination of the project in both administrative and technical terms aiming towards achieving effective operation of the project as well as timely delivery of quality results. Specific management structures and techniques have been devised to support the following objectives:

• Establishment of appropriate project relations with and reporting to the Commission.
• Organisation and running of Project Meetings and achieving common understanding within the project.
• Setting up services for electronic documentation storage.
• Establishment of appropriate review and assessment procedures within the project.
• Production of high quality technical documentation.
• Establishment of an efficient system of electronic communication.
• Establishment of an Advisory Board