Building a DIY Surgical Robot 

Bennett you’re starting to scare us

Michael Reeve's completely sane counterpart.

this is objectively dope AF. I had no idea you could buy the pieces but it makes perfect sense. Can't wait to see this on a robotic arm, and maybe build my own one day

Imagine using this as a soldering bot, it would make microwiring and board repair so much easier

I'm a software engineer and actually developed software to control an autonomous surgical robot (which mostly did suturing, anastomoses, etc.). We had some preclinical success on pigs, but eventually the team went our separate ways. One person actually joined Intuitive. As part of my design process, I was actually able to sit in and watch a minimally invasive surgery which used the daVinci robot, and use the robot myself to suture up some silicone training pads. It's surprisingly 'intuitive'... even for non-trained surgeons like myself. However, our platform we developed used completely custom tooling, and a 6-DOF arm from KUKA, along with a bunch of expensive fancy cameras. Anyway, it's cool to see other people working on similar projects in a personal capacity. It's a neat field and challenging problem, especially when you throw in robotic autonomy.

*Open Source Medical Robot?!?* I A M S O H Y P E D

Believe it or not they had a demonstration set up in a hospital I was at once. They let regular people operate it and it was super intuitive. The input had a view finder that showed the two sets of claws you were manipulating. Each hand had two finger loops mounted on armatures that let you operate the grabbers. The coolest part is that everything had a slight force feedback system so you could feel how you were interacting with the objects they set up(coins, sponge, etc). something about the size of a penny felt like the size of a dinner plate through the system.

I feel like I stumbled into a viral channel and accidentally hit the reset button on subscribers and view counts. This is incredibly professionally edited, entertaining, and interesting, I can tell this channel is about to blow up. First success my algorithm has had in awhile! New sub :)

Certified Da Vinci robotic surgeon here. A few comments: - Yes, it is awesome to use one. Not only the range of motion and precision, but also the 3d high definition vision inside of a patient. - the instruments you were able to get are from the Da Vinci Si. This version is deprecated and if I am not mistaken, they are not being produced anymore. The new version (Xi) uses instruments that work similarly, but are not compatible (planned obsolescence for sure, the Xi offers very few benefits over the Si, which was already very good, they lost some of their patents). - you control the instruments with two joysticks. There are pedals that you use when you want to change to another arm and control another instrument, or when you want to control the camera. In your device you may be able to control rotation and opening and closing of the instrument. What is still missing in your device is advancing and retracting, and hovering your instrument. The Da Vinci relies on a "remote center" in the trocar. Therefore, it won't damage the patient's belly when moving. Overall, great work! Feel free to DM me if you need some help!

Your channel is about to explode

I used to work with these every day, but it was 8-10 years ago so it was pre XI, I believe it was SI. The motorized discs would "home" themselves after an instrument was inserted, and a successful homing had to be performed before the instrument could be extended into the patient. It was a multi stage process that allowed the robot to ensure that all the cables within the instrument were intact before they came into direct contact with the patient, and to allow the robot to sync the cables between the two independent sets. There was some kind of force detection within the main unit that would detect irregularities, so if the instrument was misaligned and attempting to move in an unexpected way while restricted inside the cannula, it would report an error. A red light would show on the docking portion of the arm, the assistant would be unable to advance the instrument into the patient, and the surgeon would not be able to control it. Major pain in the ass to use but a lot of really cool technology packed in

The company I work for designed and built a robot cell that loaded baskets of medical tools/devices into a series of sterilization machines. Within several months, the baskets that the robot used to load the parts had become corroded/worn to the point of replacement. These aren't delicate mechanical devices mind you, these are heavy-duty stainless steel baskets that would knock you out if someone threw one at you. I can understand how these only have a few sterilization cycles before needing to be replaced.

You're basically Harry Potter that failed wizard school so went and got an Engineering degree instead.

I have been asking someone to do this for about 12 years. Every single time the answer was no. Thank you. You will save a lot of lives.

I had the opportunity to use one when the local hospital, that my parents worked at, got one and had a demo in its loby. It was extremely intuitive and required no leaning curve. I was in highschool at the time and it was really fun.

I have been working on this exact same project for a few years. Decided to swap to stepper motors due to the coupled motion compensation using up a large portion of the movement range on the servos. The actual robot is cable driven all the way to the mounting plate. So, all the motors are in the base of the arm, which helps with balancing the weight. Also, due to the arm being a remote center mechanism it only requires two motors for the bulk of the motion. Also for control I was thinking that a magicleap/ultraleap hand tracking unit would be the most cost effective way to get 6dof control for two arms thought it would not have force feedback which is somthing the real robot has. I was even looking into the idea of the robot being controlled over a network connection so the robot could be controlled remotely.

This man is an expert content creator, how does he not have more subscribers?

Hey, like several other commenters, I am a software engineer and I had the opportunity to use the Intuitive Surgical daVinci during CVPR conference. I must admit that the most important element of this experience was the intuitive control of the robot using „pinching” and foot-controlled pedals. Equally important was the control stand itself, equipped with goggles and head and elbow supports. I am not sure if the goggles had stereovision. I had the opportunity to perform treatment on physical rubber rings as well as virtual training programs such as „moving a ring along a curved wire”.

Assuming the mechanical system has a linear response, calculating the output to input relationship is a really neat application of linear algebra. I honestly never thought that all the stuff I learned in college would come in handy...

On the topic of instrument control, only two instruments are ever under direct control by the surgeon. There's a foot pedal that switches the active instrument with whatever instrument is located on the same side as the pedal, and it's placed in a locked position. This is usually used for retraction or switching between needle drivers and scissors when suturing. The camera is also controlled independently (I can't remember if this is foot pedal or hand switch controlled) but disables all other inputs while the camera is moving. Usually the camera is placed as optimally as possible and moved as little as possible, both to prevent disorientation and to keep instruments in view at all times.

"Im sorry Bennett, I can't allow you to do that."

This channel is criminally underrated!

voice control surgical robot sounds like a good idea for sure

When I was a kid, the natural science museum in my town opened a large addition. They had a week-long special event to promote it. One of the things they arranged was for an entire da Vinci training set up to be temporarily on display for people to try. They had a computer-based simulator, but also a real robot too! They had a bunch of challenges for people to try like wrapping dental rubber bands around various small objects. It was super cool to learn about the technology, but then actually sitting at one for a few supervised minutes to see how much skill goes into making and using those units left a lasting impression. 11/10 day at the museum.

I KNEW SALA WAS RELEVANT! love the amazing 'just because' video. and the engineering involved. great stuff!

Very cool! (Love your soldering iron "drill press". 😄) About a decade ago, Intuitive brought one of their machines to a computing show I was at (can't remember which), and and they let people try it out moving little dice around. It was really amazing how they made it all feel completely natural. I also worked at a company that shared space with a machine shop that made the scissor heads, so saw a ton of them coming off the CNC machines and on the assembly benches. The scissors use a tungsten cable for actuation. The owner of the shop told me that the tiny cable was strong enough to hold up a Volkswagen!

I lost it at 2:27 with the "...to me" line took a peek at some other videos on the channel - this is some really high quality and thoughtful content, subscribed for more

Our civilisation needs more people like you. And our governments need to spade money for science, not for wars.

Dude, you are one of the coolest dudes on RU-vid. I love that you hacked an out of reach medical surgical product. I’ve seen a lot of RU-vid videos on diy, but this one actually has legs when it comes to making a massive difference in terms of helping people. I could imagine people in 3rd world countries benefitting massively for your research.

Loved the whiteboard gag, excited to see where this project goes!

Nice! I worked on development of a few of the end effectors for Intuitive Surgical Ion robot, primarily biopsy needles. It was always a lot of fun playing around with the different end effectors.

It wouldn't give the haptic feedback, but a Leap Motion / Ultraleap Hand Tracker may work to an extent. For hand tracking *and* haptic feedback, short of making a OS Version of the Proper Device (which would be cool af, but agreeably hard (although a robotic arm without motors, if that makes any sense, may work. James Bruton did an OS "puppeteering rig" for the terminator torso+head, so between that and the OS Robotic Arms out there it *may* be doable with existing work and some integration hell)), there is an Open Source "Haptic Glove" type thing. I am unsure on latency and all that, but it was basically gloves, cables, and a sensor and/or motor module. They also have a discord which would be great for troubleshooting / brainstorming.

This is one of the most thought out, well-executed project/video's I've seen in a while. Incredible work. Can't wait for part two!

The freelance online science community is literally changing the world. This is absolutely amazing in the most Absurd way possible 👍🏻

A "Space Mouse" might be a good option for a control scheme. They're commonly used for 3d modeling so it seems like it would translate well.

Production quality hugely surpasses sub count. I hope your channel blows up man, good work

I just had a minor abdominal operation done robotically a few weeks ago. Super cool to see all the different tools they have, wanted to ask to see stuff before they put me under but everything happened so fast once they were ready for me and wheeled me into the OR. I did ask what kind of abdominal mesh they were going to use, and so I got a little card to look it up after. Also very high tech/ mechanically interesting stuff. It unrolls itself and completely self adheres to the abdominal tissue like velcro without the need for stitches, and then partially gets absorbed into the tissue.

Seeing not only hard working but smart colleagues is always a joy. You have a sub!

This content is absolute gold. I am subbed and glued to my seat, both ironically and unironically. I have been waiting for someone to tackle controlling these, as the used tooling looks very capable for other uses outside a surgeon's use.

Absolutely not a "rediculous endeavor". This is Absolutely brilliant and I hope more young people are inspired by your curiosity and determination. You are literally showing everyone how anything is possible.

WoW. This is the first video I got recommended from your channel and I must say, this is some great progress.

This is wildly unnecessary, but I’m so incredibly glad it exists. Thank you, sir. Keep it up.

Gosh your montage is refreshing ! I really enjoy your effort on this, and on the content also Hope your channel gets the success you deserve ! 🚀

I actually work at intuitive. You can get a tour of the factory and get in a robot and actually drive it. The insertion of the instrument to the robot is genius and you may glean some information by going through the tour.

that fact that you have made it this far is impressive as!! working out those 4 axis ones is going to absolutely suck also as far as input is concerned, even if you built a mechanical replica the interface between that and your instruments is going to be some crazy complicated maths if you get this working to even a basic working state i think it would be incredibly useful for things outside the medical field, especially since you have worked out there will be a steady supply of the instruments. things like small scale electronics come to mind. I also think if you find the right instrument, that modifying the end effectors to suit other purposes would be another avenue for investigation. instant new follower here, lets see how much patience/endurance you have for this task!

So I've actually briefly used one in a hospital brought in by a vendor. The controls at the station are electronically counter balanced and have different selectable scaling options built into the software to scale down you hand motions within the work space. They're incredibly well balanced and smooth, but id imagine you could achieve similar results with a cable and pulley balance system. Could also install rotary encoders on the balance pulleys to translate the movements.

Great Video love the design of the linking mechanism with the servos. Got a good chuckle out of the failed parts bucket as well.

This is brilliant. Would love to see more of this content. Loved it!

Dude, this is sick! Figuring out how to control the arm looked like a nightmare because of how convolved the inputs are.

So sick, amazing work!

This is SO cool, super excited to see what you do with this in the future!

This is awesome. I got to play with a DaVinci robot in the Hartford mall that they had set up for the public to see back in 2014. It was the coolest machine I've ever seen.

100% deserves a subscribe, happy I found your channel and looking forward to seeing your channel grow

Wow. You are insanely smart when it comes to stuff like this! Very cool project as well.

This is so incredible. More videos please!

Managed to get to use one for like 15 minutes at a temporary exhibit at the Carnegie Science Center upwards of 20 years ago prototype/demo/sales exhibit before they were on the market, as a technology collab with CMU. I've been fascinated with them since. Excellent project, sorely tempted.

I enjoy your joystick accommodation.

God the variety of shots In this video takes the production quality up like 10 levels. What an AMAZING video and channel.

This is amazing! the quality of the content only matched by the superb quality of the video production! Instant subscriber

Man you’re so underrated! Awesome video! Subscribed and waiting for even more awesome videos! 👏🏻

OMG waaaaaay too underrated.. The quality of your videos is insane. Keep it up! I am currently building a robotic arm and will definitely come back to this video if I need some high precision tool.

This. Is. Insane. Seriously, keep going with your work!!!

76 views? Should be 7.6 million!

This was amazingly high quality content! Thanks for posting, was super fun to watch, and I'm stoked for you to eventually peel that grape!!!!

great video, very engaging and well edited! keep it up dude!

Awesome project, and great work!

I actually got a chance to play around with one of these when I was 8 or 9. I was really interested in the body and wanted to be a surgeon so my mom took me to a davinci surgical system information conference (geared more towards elderly people who needed surgery) and they had one on display that they would let people use. It was absolutely incredible, especially for the time.

Oh boy I sure hope davinci doesnt greet you with cease and desist

Paused at 4:30. The irony of you having these in what looks like the sterilization case and your puppy walking around on them was hilarious. On with the video.

definitely looking to follow this project please keep going on this one

Oh man, this is great content! Love that it also exposes how inflated medical equipment costs are.

This is absolutely sick, amazing and completely crazy. Please, go on.

Casual genius. Thanks for sharing!

Absolutely insane work

First time watching a video of yours, what you do is amazing Bennett! Instant +1 sub.

So dope, I am following your endeavor now

I got to use one of these at a robotics competition back in high school, no clue why they were there but turned out to be a cool/rare experience!

This channel reminds me of DIY perks and I love it

I can see your focusing and studying other RU-vidrs to make these videos as good as they can be, as soon as possible. Paying off really well, good camera presence, editing etc :)

First time seeing anything from your channel. Loved this video, the process the explanation of the mindset and the lop-sided whiteboard. Genius! 😆

This is the best editing ever

That camera quality is incredibly crispy!

Wonderfully crafted video! I was expecting a lot more subscribers, but I am sure those will come with time. I can't wait to see where this project goes!

Love your edit & project great work

I bet that looking into puppeteering solutions could help a lot in developing controls for the system. They seem to find some amazing engineering solutions for precise movement on a shoe string budget.

Really excited about this project!

This guy is starting to resemble a mad scientist. Like an actual technical prowess with the "polishness" of his creation to make it feasible

Ever since i saw a teardown i was waiting for someone to do this!!

I was just looking for something like this last week after trying to solder TINY wires on equally tiny SMD LEDS. I just ordered one and will be following along!

Love it! I’ve been fortunate to get to play with one before when I was 14! I still have the video

This is great! Can't wait to watch your channel grow!

I can't wait for the grapendectomy. This is awesome!

dude ive been thinking about making a DIY soldering surgical robot. great job man

bro this is really cool hope you blow up!!! also since you mentioned that there will be way too many axises you could imitate your robot in solidworks and calculate the degrees of rotation from that (if thats possible) since solid works allows you to not allow your parts to collide into eachother

This is BEAUTIFUL!

Very cool project! I am excited to see this progress!

this is wild and EXACTLY the kind of thing I love to see showing up on my feed. SUBSCRIBED!

Easiest subscription of my life

Why do I go to college when there’s people like you out in the world who are capable of incorporating every field of science into a single project on their own terms?

For everyone who's super stoked about this project I just stumbled upon an analog version that you move like a puppet. It's super friggin cool! If you type into YT, "An ergonomic surgical tool for minimally invasive procedures" a video from Michigan State U comes up. There's lots of documentation as well.