Intraoperative excessive body wall force detection and mitigation

A surgical robotic system, comprising:

• a robotic arm having a plurality of joints and a remote center of motion (RCM) aligned with an incision port on a body wall of a patient;
• at least one processor;
• and
• memory having instructions stored therein which when executed by the at least one processor causes the surgical robotic system to:
• enable a compliance mode in controlling the robotic arm, the compliance mode allows the RCM to be compliant with an external force exerted by the body wall around the incision port,
• determine an RCM displacement under the compliance mode in response to the external force;
• and
• responsive to determining that the RCM displacement has reached a maximum displacement of the RCM, disable the compliance mode and send a notification.

A non-transitory machine-readable medium storing instructions operable to cause one or more processors to perform operations including:

• enabling a compliance mode in controlling a robotic arm of a surgical robot, wherein the robotic arm includes a remote center of motion (RCM) aligned with an incision port on a body wall of a patient, and the compliance mode allows the RCM to be compliant with an external force exerted by the body wall around the incision port;
• determining an RCM displacement under the compliance mode in response to the external force;
• estimating the external force based on the determined RCM displacement;
• and
• responsive to determining that the external force exceeds a force threshold, or the RCM displacement reaches a maximum displacement, disabling the compliance mode and sending a notification.