Medical Robotics
2025/26
Marilena Vendittelli
Information
schedule
Tuesday 14:00-16:00, A6, via Ariosto 25
Wednesday 10:00-12:00, A6, via Ariosto 25
Friday 08:00-10:00, A4, via Ariosto 25
Friday 10:00-12:00, A4, via Ariosto 25
Audience
Students of the Master in Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Control Engineering and
Biomedical Engineering, Sapienza University of Rome.
Objective
Introduction to the applications of robotic technologies in the medical context, with
particular emphasis on surgical robotics.
Expected learning results: knowledge of the main robotic surgical systems and of the
challenges and methodologies involved in medical robots design and control.
Expected competence in:
- critically reading a scientific paper describing medical
robotics technologies;
- discussing in detail the state of the art of robotics
applications in medicine;
- estimating potential benefits deriving from the
introduction of robotic technologies in a medical procedure;
- arguing the development of a particular technology not yet
available or experimentally validated;
- communicating and collaborating with people with different
technical background;
- evaluating clinical, social and economical constraints in
implementing a robotic technology in a medical context;
- control design for medical robots: physical-interaction
control, teleoperation, constrained manipulation, shared execution of surgical tasks;
- design and developments of simulation systems for planning,
training, augmentation of medical procedures;
- safety and regulatory aspects involved in the introduction
of robotic systems in medical procedures.
Contents
Course contents vary on a yearly basis. The list reported below includes the core
topics treated during the course.
- Introduction to the course
- Historical perspective and surgical systems overview
- Classification of surgical systems supported by
robots
- Kinematic design of medical robots
- Control
- Control modalities of medical robots vs their domain of
use
- Physical interaction control: basic principles and case
studies
- Shared control and virtual fixtures
- Virtual fixtures: examples of application
- Constrained manipulation and constrained targeting: task
control with Remote Center of Motion (RCM) constraint
- Teleoperation 1: general principles
- Teleoperation 2: the 4-channel architecture, transparency
and stability
- Visual servoing: concept and mathematical formulation for
monocular cameras
- Visual servoing for medical procedures assisted by
robots
- Sensing, State Estimation and Registration
- Sensing Modalities
- State Estimation and Surgical Navigation
- Medical Robot Registration
- Haptics
- Introduction to haptics
- Haptic rendering
- Case study: needle-tissue interaction force
identification and haptic rendering in teleoperated needle insertion
- Exoskeletons and biomechanics of walking
- Exoskeletons: introductory concepts and examples
- Human gait analysis
- Case study: comparative gait analysis on twins for
children affected by cerebral palsy
- Simulation tools
- the da Vinci Research Kit (dVRK) kinematic
simulator
- the dVRK dynamic simulator
- visuo-haptic interaction with virtual patients
- Safety
- General concepts
- Synthetic description of the IEC 80601-2-77 (safety of
robotically assisted surgical equipment and systems)
- European Regulation on Medical Devices
- The AI act and the healthcare technologies
- Integration of AI methods
- Learning-based instrument tracking and surgical scene
understanding
- Simulation of deformable structures
- Data-driven internal temperature estimation from
superficial
measurements
- Hands-on sessions decided yearly
For details and material, access the course site in Sapienza e-learning
environment.
Prerequisites
A general background in robotics (kinematics, dynamics, control), as given in Robotics 1 and Robotics 2 and is highly
recommended.
Grading
To obtain 6 credits for Medical Robotics there are two alternative exam
modalities:
- usually requiring programming
- work done in groups of 3-4 students
- necessary condition for project assignment: 2 homeworks assigned during the course
must be completed with grade at least
equal to
B
- weight on the final grade
project: 90%
homeworks: 10%
- written exam plus oral discussion
examples of written exam text are available in e-MR
oral discussion can involve any topic in the program
Master Theses on the topics studied in this course can be discussed directly
with the
instructor.
Questions/comments: vendittelli [at] diag [dot] uniroma1 [dot] it