Systems and methods for detecting environmental forces on an elongate device
AssigneeIntuitive Surgical Operations, Inc.
InventorsNicola Diolaiti, Federico Barbagli, Samuel Y. Chang, Vincent Duindam
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Abstract
A medical system includes a flexible elongate instrument and a control unit. The control unit is configured to determine a force exerted by the flexible elongate instrument on tissue of a patient, determine a driving state of the flexible elongate instrument, set a force threshold based on the driving state, and provide feedback to an operator in response to the determined force being higher than the force threshold. Different driving states are associated with different force thresholds.
Claims20
A medical system comprising:
- a flexible elongate instrument;
- and
- a control unit configured to:
- determine a force exerted by the flexible elongate instrument on tissue of a patient;
- determine a driving state of the flexible elongate instrument;
- set a force threshold based on the driving state, wherein different driving states are associated with different force thresholds;
- and
- provide feedback to an operator in response to the determined force being higher than the force threshold.
A method of operating a medical system, the method comprising:
- determining a force exerted by a flexible elongate instrument on tissue of a patient;
- determining a driving state of the flexible elongate instrument;
- setting a force threshold based on the driving state, wherein different driving states are associated with different force thresholds;
- and
- providing feedback to an operator in response to the determined force being higher than the force threshold.
A non-transitory machine-readable medium comprising a plurality of machine-readable instructions which when executed by one or more processors associated with a device are adapted to cause the one or more processors to perform a method comprising:
- determining a first force exerted by a flexible elongate instrument on tissue of a patient;
- determining a driving state of the flexible elongate instrument;
- setting a force threshold based on the driving state, wherein different driving states are associated with different force thresholds;
- and
- providing feedback to an operator in response to the determined first force being higher than the force threshold.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.