Khan Muhammad Umair Ahmad, Shahzadi Hina, Ullah Muhammad Asad, Hassan Hammad, Ain Noor Ul
Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Engineering and Technology (UET) Lahore, Narowal Campus, Narowal, Pakistan.
J Robot Surg. 2025 Aug 18;19(1):493. doi: 10.1007/s11701-025-02663-0.
This study aims to design and evaluate a six-degree-of-freedom (6-DOF) master-slave robotic system for remote, contact-free ENT examination, focusing on safety, efficiency, and user workload. A three-axis Cartesian stage with a three-axis spherical wrist was designed for precise, non-contact laryngoscopy. Six participants (3 experts, 3 novices) performed eight phantom and eight in-vivo trials each. Primary outcomes included task-completion time and subjective workload (NASA-TLX), analysed using mixed-effects ANOVA (α = 0.05). In vivo, experts completed tasks in 300 ± 12 s, compared to 481 ± 18 s for novices (p < 0.001); phantom trials showed similar trends (experts = 125 ± 9 s; novices = 212 ± 15 s, p < 0.001). Experts reported lower NASA-TLX scores (34 ± 7) than novices (47 ± 6, p = 0.02). Learning-curve analysis showed a per-trial time improvement of 2.24 s for experts and 1.13 s for novices. This novel 6-DOF robotic platform enables safe, efficient, and contact-free ENT inspection while reducing the skill barrier for novice users. Its ergonomic master interface and stable spherical-link architecture make it suitable for both clinical deployment and training. Ongoing work includes integration of haptic feedback and multi-centre clinical validation.
本研究旨在设计并评估一种用于远程、非接触式耳鼻喉科检查的六自由度主从机器人系统，重点关注安全性、效率和用户工作量。设计了一个带有三轴球形手腕的三轴笛卡尔工作台，用于精确的非接触式喉镜检查。六名参与者（3名专家、3名新手）每人进行了8次模拟试验和8次体内试验。主要结果包括任务完成时间和主观工作量（NASA-TLX），采用混合效应方差分析（α = 0.05）进行分析。在体内试验中，专家完成任务的时间为300±12秒，新手为481±18秒（p < 0.001）；模拟试验显示出类似趋势（专家 = 125±9秒；新手 = 212±15秒，p < 0.001）。专家报告的NASA-TLX得分（34±7）低于新手（47±6，p = 0.02）。学习曲线分析表明，专家每次试验时间改进2.24秒，新手改进1.13秒。这种新型六自由度机器人平台能够实现安全、高效、非接触式的耳鼻喉科检查，同时降低新手用户的技能障碍。其符合人体工程学的主界面和稳定的球形连杆结构使其适用于临床部署和培训。正在进行的工作包括触觉反馈的集成和多中心临床验证。
