Murilo Marques Marinho

The University of Tokyo | Todai · Department of Mechanical Engineering

Background: With the increasing presence of surgical robots minimally-invasive surgery, there is a growing necessity of a versatile surgical system for deep and narrow workspaces. Methods: We developed a versatile system for constrained workspaces called SmartArm. It has two industrial-type robotic arms with flexible tools attached to its distal...

Dual quaternion algebra and its application to robotics have attracted considerable interest in the last two decades. Dual quaternions have great geometric appeal and easily capture physical phenomena inside an algebraic framework, which is useful for both robot modeling and control. Mathematical objects, such as points, lines, planes, infinite cyl...

Recent advancements in constrained kinematic control make it an attractive strategy for controlling robots with arbitrary geometry in challenging tasks. Most current works assume that the robot kinematic model is precise enough for the task at hand. However, with increasing demands and safety requirements in robotic applications, there is a need fo...

Vitreoretinal surgery is challenging even for expert surgeons owing to the delicate target tissues and the diminutive 7-mm-diameter workspace in the retina. In addition to improved dexterity and accuracy, robot assistance allows for (partial) task automation. In this work, we propose a strategy to automate the motion of the light guide with respect...

Surgical robots are controlled using a priori models based on robots' geometric parameters, which are calibrated before the surgical procedure. One of the challenges in using robots in real surgical settings is that parameters change over time, consequently deteriorating control accuracy. In this context, our group has been investigating online cal...

Commercially available surgical-robot technology currently addresses many surgical scenarios for adult patients. This same technology cannot be used to the benefit of neonate patients given the considerably smaller workspace. Medically relevant procedures regarding neonate patients include minimally invasive surgery to repair congenital esophagus d...

Commercially available surgical-robot technology currently addresses many surgical scenarios for adult patients. This same technology cannot be used to the benefit of neonate patients given the considerably smaller workspace. Medically relevant procedures regarding neonate patients include minimally invasive surgery to repair congenital esophagus d...

Surgical environment recognition is indispensable for automatic robotic assistance. In particular, the surgical thread’s detection is essential to the automation of micro-anastomosis but challenging because of the small diameter of the thread. This work investigates the use of an image-based structural health monitoring deep learning algorithm and...

Using nasal endoscopic surgery as a case study, we are investigating the pose estimation of surgical tools using endoscopic images. Current state-of-the-art algorithms are well known to require a large amount of training data. Our group has been investigating the generation of synthetic images with realistic appearance to consistently address this...

To improve the efficiency of grossing in pathology, a master-slave robotic system has been developed. In order to automate the task by the robotic system, a proper cutting method of deformable pathological specimens is required. In this paper, we investigated a proper cutting policy of grossing and implemented a force feedback system based on the p...

Increasing demand for pathological diagnoses and a shortage of expert pathologists motivated our development of a master-slave robotic system aiming the autonomous grossing of pathology specimens. A large amount of training data is needed to automate the cutting procedure using machine-learning. To reliably obtain training data, we propose a simula...

Tasks in vitreoretinal surgery are challenging even for expert surgeons since they target delicate tissues in the eyeball. Robots can be used to assist surgeons in performing such tasks accurately and safely. We have been developing an eye surgical robot comprised of a pair of robotic arms; one holding a light guide and the other holding a surgical...

The manual generation of training data for the semantic segmentation of medical images using deep neural-networks is a time-consuming and error-prone task. In this study, we evaluate the applicability of realistic synthetic images in the training of deep-learning models. We used virtual reality (VR) simulation to generate photorealistic images and...

PurposeThe manual generation of training data for the semantic segmentation of medical images using deep neural networks is a time-consuming and error-prone task. In this paper, we investigate the effect of different levels of realism on the training of deep neural networks for semantic segmentation of robotic instruments. An interactive virtual-re...

The limited workspace in pediatric endoscopic surgery makes surgical suturing one of the most difficult tasks. During suturing, surgeons have to prevent collisions between instruments and also collisions with the surrounding tissues. Surgical robots have been shown to be effective in adult laparoscopy, but assistance for suturing in constrained wor...

Surgical robots are used to perform minimally invasive surgery and alleviate much of the burden imposed on surgeons. Our group has developed a surgical robot to aid in the removal of tumors at the base of the skull via access through the nostrils. To avoid injuring the patients, a collision-avoidance algorithm that depends on having an accurate mod...

Procedures requiring dura mater suturing and reconstruction through transnasal approaches are difficult owing to the narrow workspace of the nasal cavity, therefore are only performed in practice by expert surgeons. In this work, we present an overview of the SmartArm robot and experimental results in a teleoperated simulated endonasal surgery usin...

Manual suturing of dura mater after endonasal tumor resection is a difficult task in neurosurgery due to the constrained workspace and narrow field of view, requiring hours of training. Master-slave robotic systems are being developed to support such a complex task; however, the neurosurgeons still need to adapt themselves to the new robotic system...

Dual quaternion algebra and its application to robotics have gained considerable interest in the last two decades. Dual quaternions have great geometric appeal and easily capture physical phenomena inside an algebraic framework that is useful for both robot modeling and control. Mathematical objects, such as points, lines, planes, infinite cylinder...

The limited workspace in pediatric endoscopic surgery makes surgical suturing one of the most difficult tasks. During suturing, surgeons have to prevent collisions between tools and also collisions with the surrounding tissues. Surgical robots have been shown to be effective in adult laparoscopy, but assistance for suturing in constrained workspace...

In adult laparoscopy, robot-aided surgery is a reality in thousands of operating rooms worldwide, owing to the increased dexterity provided by the robotic tools. Many robots and robot control techniques have been developed to aid in more challenging scenarios, such as pediatric surgery and microsurgery. However, the prevalence of case-specific solu...

In adult laparoscopy, robot-aided surgery is a reality in thousands of operating rooms worldwide, owing to the increased dexterity provided by the robotic tools. Many robots and robot control techniques have been developed to aid in more challenging scenarios, such as pediatric surgery and microsurgery. However, the prevalence of case-specific solu...

Background Integrating simulators with robotic surgical procedures could assist in designing and testing of novel robotic control algorithms and further enhance patient‐specific pre‐operative planning and training for robotic surgeries. Methods A virtual reality simulator, developed to perform the transsphenoidal resection of pituitary gland tumou...

Vitreoretinal surgery is one of the most difficult surgical operations, even for experienced surgeons. Thus, a master-slave eye surgical robot has been developed to assist the surgeon in safely performing vitreoretinal surgeries; however, in the master-slave control, the robotic positioning accuracy depends on the surgeon's coordination skills. Thi...

Robotic assistance allows surgeons to perform dexterous and tremor-free procedures, but is still underrepresented in deep brain neurosurgery and endonasal surgery where the workspace is constrained. In these conditions, the vision of surgeons is restricted to areas near the surgical tool tips, which increases the risk of unexpected collisions betwe...

Robotic assistance allows surgeons to perform dexterous and tremor-free procedures, but robotic aid is still underrepresented in procedures with constrained workspaces, such as deep brain neurosurgery and endonasal surgery. In those, surgeons have restricted vision to areas near the surgical tool tips, which increases the risk of unexpected collisi...

Neonatal tracheoesophageal fistula surgery poses technical challenges to surgeons, given the limited workspace and fragile tissues. In previous studies from our collaborators, a neonatal chest model was developed to allow surgeons to enhance their performance, such as suturing ability, before conducting actual surgery. Endoscopic images are recorde...

The present authors have been developing a master-slave neurosurgical robot and its intelligent control for tasks in the deep and narrow spaces of the brain. This paper proposes a robotic autonomous control method for avoiding possible collisions between the shaft of a surgical robotic instrument and the surrounding tissues. To this end, a new robo...

Whenever a robotic assistant is designed for minimally invasive surgery (MIS), the trocar point constraint needs to be addressed. The robot assistant should generate a remote center of motion (RCM) that matches the trocar point position throughout surgery. There have been many studies regarding robot designs that handle this constraint on a mechani...

This paper presents a preliminary evaluation of a framework that allows an overhead RGBD camera to segment and track workers skeleton in an unstructured factory environment. The default Kinect skeleton tracking algorithm was developed using front-view artificial depth images generated from a 3D model of a person in an empty room. The proposed frame...

Minimally invasive surgical systems are being widely used to aid operating rooms across the globe. Although arguably successful in laparoscopic surgery, the da Vinci robotic system has limitations mostly regarding cost and lack of patient physiological motion compensation. To obtain a more cost-effective alternative, earlier works used general-purp...

The use of robots in surgery is of great research interest following the widespread adoption of da Vinci systems in surgical rooms worldwide. Research interest has grown, as such robot aid still cannot fully perform procedures requiring smaller instruments and more precise movements. In addition to added flexibility, serial-link manipulators can al...

Surgical treatment of the eye fundus involves the insertion of thin surgical tools into the eyeball, that have to interact with the micrometer-scale structures of the eye. In such small scale, manually handling the instruments is especially challenging, since involuntary hand tremors alone can have larger amplitudes than the structures being handle...

Within robotic-aided laparoscopy, one important research topic concerns the teleoperation of open chain serial link manipulators. As opposed to specialized surgical robots, a serial robot might be used for different procedures with small changes on the setup, lowering the involved costs and possibly increasing the acceptance of robotic systems in c...

This work is divided in two complementary contributions concerning the use of serial-link robotic manipulators in a laparoscopic surgery setting. At first, known techniques for singularity robustness and redundancy exploitation are adapted to the use of unit dual quaternions, which have some advantages over homogenous transformation matrices concer...

The great number of possible tasks that can be performed by a robotic manipulator has inspired the development of many different kinematic control strategies in the literature. These classic strategies often use minimal representations for the end-effector pose, leading to representation singularities. Alternatively, in strategies that use non-mini...

Needle steering devices present great potential for improving the safety and accuracy of medical interventions with percutaneous access. Despite significant advances in the field, needle steerability remains an issue to be solved by the scientific community. In this paper, we propose the use of discrete steps in flexible needle insertion, inspired...

This paper proposes a control system for intuitive operation of robotic manipulators based on the dual quaternion framework. The system is entirely developed using the Robotic Operating System (ROS). It contains both low level interface and end effector controllers for a Schunk Lightweight Arm and simple communication with sensor devices like Kinec...