Vanderbilt research team sets out to develop ‘fully autonomous’ surgical robot

Robert Webster and his team set up the surgical robot for a suturing experiment. (Photo from Vanderbilt) 

A Vanderbilt University-led research team will use $12 million in federal funding from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) to develop a surgical robot that’s capable of performing surgeries without human intervention.

According to an announcement, the team will be led by mechanical engineering professor Robert J. Webster, and includes robotics experts from the University of Utah, Johns Hopkins University, and Vanderbilt. The team also includes hardware and software experts from Virtuoso Surgical, a surgical robotics company co-founded by Webster and Duke Herrell, professor of urology and director of Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s Minimally Invasive Urologic Surgery/Robotics Program.

Webster said the goal of the project is to create autonomous technologies that can address the worldwide shortage of surgeons, which will expand global access to lifesaving surgeries.

“Fully autonomous surgical robots will transform medicine,” Webster said, adding that the breakthrough technology could make routine procedures “safer and more affordable.”

Webster said current surgical robotic technologies often rely on model-based automation, where procedure sequences and start-stop conditions are pre-programmed. Another method draws on machine-learning algorithms that require enormous datasets of procedures and task sequences. He added that this project will involve creating “brand new machine-learning algorithms.”  

“The key to making them practical is to simultaneously look at how human surgeons perform their work. What basic set of maneuvers do they use? How do they sequence those maneuvers? The answers to these questions enable effective learning on a tractable amount of data,” he said in the announcement.

Within three years, the research team hopes to demonstrate a robotic surgical device capable of removing tumors from the trachea and prostate by itself, among other clinical applications. Such clinical applications will initially be demonstrated in simulated conditions rather than live patients.

The team will use needle-sized, concentric-tube robots capable of bending—which were developed at the Vanderbilt Institute for Surgery and Engineering (VISE)—to enable greater sensing abilities in fully autonomous devices. The robot will then be able to make suggestions based on situational awareness, such as where to make an incision, allowing surgeons to confirm or adjust the action.

“Creating a system that can learn from human surgeons — and continue to improve performance — will be a game changer,” Herrell said. “Our vision is not to replace surgeons, but to vastly expand the work they do to improve patient’s lives and long-term health outcomes.”

To support their work, Webster and Herrell have developed a highly collaborative research partnership through VISE that integrates engineering technology with clinical insights from experienced physicians.

“This ARPA-H award is a remarkable testament to the recognized excellence and impact of Vanderbilt School of Engineering in Surgical Robotics,” Bruce and Bridgitt Evans Dean of Engineering Krishnendu Roy said in a statement. “Professor Webster and the team exemplify the ‘One Vanderbilt’ principle through deep collaborations between Engineering and Medicine to develop transformative innovations that impact patient lives.”

The team’s ARPA-H proposal was supported by Vanderbilt University Research Development and Support, which offers proposal development assistance for private (foundation) and federally funded opportunities. Webster said that securing ARPA-H funding is a game changer for Vanderbilt’s robotics research and development efforts.

“ARPA-H allows us to reach for the stars on things like this that could really change health care,” Webster said in a recent video about their work.

“In this project, we want to have the surgeon supervising the whole time, and we want to get to the point where the robot does the whole procedure with supervision, where the surgeon's there to step in whenever needed, and that's how these systems are going to get rolled out to the general public in the in the initial phase as well.”