Designing an active motor skill learning platform with a robot-assisted laparoscopic trainer.

Laparoscopic Surgery poses significant complexity in hand-eye coordination to the surgeon. In order to improve their proficiency beyond the limited exposure in the operating theatre, surgeons need to practice on laparoscopic trainers. We have constructed a robotic laparoscopic trainer with identical degrees of freedom and range of motion as a conventional laparoscopic instrument. We hypothesize that active robotic assistance through a laparoscopic trainer improves training efficacy as compared to autonomous practice. In order to test the hypothesis, we have divided the subjects into two groups. The control group practiced on two laparoscopic tasks manually without feedback or supervision. The other group practiced on the same tasks with robotic assistance. Results from the robot-assisted group show that tool orientation (pitch and yaw joint motion) in the pointing task improved by more than 15%.