Optimizing Base Placement of Surgical Robot: Kinematics Data-Driven Approach by Analyzing Working Pattern

In robot-assisted minimally invasive surgery (RAMIS), optimal placement of the surgical robot base is crucial for successful surgery. Improper placement can hinder performance because of manipulator limitations and inaccessible workspaces. Conventional base placement relies on the experience of trained medical staff. This study proposes a novel method for determining the optimal base pose based on the surgeon's working pattern. The proposed method analyzes recorded end-effector poses using a machine learning-based clustering technique to identify key positions and orientations preferred by the surgeon. We introduce two scoring metrics to address the joint limit and singularity issues: joint margin and manipulability scores. We then train a multi-layer perceptron regressor to predict the optimal base pose based on these scores. Evaluation in a simulated environment using the da Vinci Research Kit shows unique base pose score maps for four volunteers, highlighting the individuality of the working patterns. Results comparing with 20,000 randomly selected base poses suggest that the score obtained using the proposed method is 28.2% higher than that obtained by random base placement. These results emphasize the need for operator-specific optimization during base placement in RAMIS.