Prior methods of patient care have changed in recent years due to the availability of minimally invasive surgical platforms for endovascular interventions. These platforms have demonstrated the ability to improve patients’ vascular intervention outcomes, and global morbidities and mortalities from vascular disease are decreasing. Nonetheless, there are still concerns about the long-term effects of exposing interventionalists and patients to the operational hazards in the cath lab, and the perioperative risks that patients undergo. For these reasons, robot-assisted vascular interventions were developed to provide interventionalists with the ability to perform minimally invasive procedures with improved surgical workflow. We conducted a thorough literature search and presented a review of 130 studies published within the last 20 years that focused on robot-assisted endovascular interventions and are closely related to the current gains and obstacles of vascular interventional robots published up to 2022. We assessed both the research-based prototypes and commercial products, with an emphasis on their technical characteristics and application domains. Furthermore, we outlined how the robotic platforms enhanced both surgeons’ and patients’ perioperative experiences of robot-assisted vascular interventions. Finally, we summarized our findings and proposed three key milestones that could improve the development of the next-generation vascular interventional robots.

In robot-assisted vascular interventional surg- ery (VIS), surgeons often need to operate outside the operating room to avoid exposure to X-ray. However, it greatly changes the operating ways of surgeons, which affects judgment and operation safety. In this paper, a novel VIS robot system was developed to predict guidewire insertion states and operate collaboratively. To assist the surgeons in perceiving the insertion state, an insertion multi-states prediction model based on softmax logistic regression was proposed. Combined with the prediction model, a human-machine collaborative control strategy was designed, which allows surgeons to perceive the insertion states based on not only the force feedback constructed by the master side but also the prediction results from the slave side. Moreover, a human-machine trust evaluation model and a master-slave collaborative mapping model were proposed for improving safety and efficiency of surgery. To verify the effectiveness of these models, the evaluation experiments in the blood vessel model were carried out. It was indicated by the experiment results that the guidewire insertion states can be predicted by the prediction model in different environments, and the overall accuracy is 93%. The master-slave mapping ratio can be adjusted by the collaborative control strategy automatically to adapt to different surgical conditions. The experimental results showed the usability of the robot-assisted VIS system with the novel force-based perception method.

This article presents a novel rescue robot with three-degrees of freedom leg mechanism based on the serial–parallel and wheel-legged mechanisms, which consists of two Universal joint-Prismatic joint-Spherical joint plus one Universal joint and Revolute joint serial–parallel mechanism. Firstly, the structure model of the whole mechanism and the leg mechanism is developed, the dimension parameters of leg mechanism are designed, and the degrees of freedom of the whole mechanism and the leg mechanism is analyzed. Secondly, the forward and backward position solutions of the swing leg and the standing leg are solved, and the work space is obtained. Thirdly, the kinematics is investigated by the influence coefficient method, including the Jacobi matrix and linear velocity and angular velocity of each rod’s centroid of the leg mechanism. Finally, the simulation and experiment are carried out, and the feasibility of this wheel-legged rescue robot and the correctness of the above research are verified.

Aiming at solving the problems of low flexibility, poor internal extension, and chopstick effect in most laparoscopic surgical robots, this letter presents a flexible tendon-driven continuum surgical manipulator with eight degrees of freedom, called FIORA. The manipulator is composed of three independent flexible segments in series, and each flexible segment includes 12 spherical joints made of aluminum alloy backbone. The manipulator is driven by twelve tendons and has good flexibility and rigidity. The compact actuation unit can meet the requirements of force and position control for each tendon,and provide two degrees of freedom for the manipulator to move forward and rotate. Considering the shape-position relationship of the continuum, a kinematic modeling method based on piecewise constant curvature model is proposed, which can solve the problems of accurate modeling and fast decoupling. Analyzing and comparing similar researches, the manipulator shows excellent working range and flexibility. Experiments verified the accuracy of the kinematics model and the good operating performance of the manipulator.

At present, most vascular intervention surgical robots (VISRs) cannot achieve effective force feedback and lack regulation of the clamping force of the guidewire. In this paper, a VISR based on force feedback and clamping force regulation is proposed. It is a master–slave system consisting of a master manipulator that is flexible enough and a slave wire feeder that can deliver the guidewire. Accurate force feedback is established to ensure the safety of the operation, and the clamping force of the guidewire can be regulated in real time. Based on the dynamic analysis of the mechanism, the control scheme of the system is designed. The two-dimensional fuzzy PID (Proportion Integration Differentiation) controller is equipped with on-line tuning parameters and anti-interference capabilities. The sine and step signals are selected to carry out simulation analysis on the controller. The performance of the designed VISR was verified by a force feedback experiment, a clamping force regulation experiment and a vascular model experiment.

To develop a robot system for minimally invasive surgery is significant, however the existing minimally invasive surgery robots are not applicable in practical operations, due to their limited...