Optimal Planning of Robotically Assisted Heart Surgery: First Results on the Transfer Precision in the Operating Room

The aim of this work is to quantify the errors introduced at different levels of applying results planned using a computer integrated surgery system in the operating room, and to make use of these errors to adapt the transfer and rethink the planning. In particular, we address the registration between preoperative imaging and the intraoperative patient model, as well as between the patient and the robot. Two different registration methods are used and their accuracies compared. Moreover, augmented reality trials are conducted to assess the difficulty of adapting preoperative data to intraoperative models in order to deliver useful information to the surgeon during the intervention. The experimental work in this paper is conducted on a dog for a coronary bypass intervention using the da Vinci™ surgical system.