1420th Key of the Key
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In fact, when Huang Haibin was in the United States, after learning about the design and working principle of surgical robots, he thought about building a robot himself.
In fact, for a genius like him, as long as he understands the working principle of this device, it is not difficult to build one by himself.
For example, the robotic arm system, mechanical wrist, and the control system for the end gripper can actually bypass the patent blockade of the Americans by making some slight changes.
Prior to this, he had already formulated plans, and some of them had even applied for patents.
Let's talk about the doctor's control system, which is also his main scientific research direction during his stay in the United States.
Although the robots developed by the Intuitive Sense Company in the early years were born out of the research institute of Stanford University, they have also carried out close cooperation with many universities in the United States.
Among them is the MIT where Huang Haibin worked. At that time, he participated in several project teams at MIT, and what he did was to develop a supporting control system for this surgical robot.
Speaking of the biggest difference from industrial robots, it is the control system of this surgical robot.
The control system of industrial machine tools does not need to take into account the feeling of the workpiece at all.
They only need to process on the workpiece according to the designer's requirements.
But the surgical robot can't do it. What his working system needs to do is a three-link.
First of all, the doctor must be connected to the device, and then the doctor should be connected to the patient through the device.
After that, it is necessary to pass the patient's feedback to the doctor, so that the doctor can carry out the next step.
For example, when the doctor controls the robotic arm, enters the operation area, and touches the patient's operation area, what is the most suitable distance?
When it is one centimeter, there is just enough room for operation, and if it advances one centimeter, the robotic arm may directly kill the patient.
Therefore, this system has very important requirements for perception, so the requirements for sensors are also very high.
Fortunately, these various sensors are not a problem at all for Americans.
And now in the country,
Sensors are actually a big problem, because domestic sensors are really weak.
Now many people are saying that the weakest in our country is the chip, because we are stuck by the United States every day in the chip field.
But those who are really engaged in scientific research on the front line know that, in fact, the worst thing we have compared to the United States is not only chips.
The worst thing we have compared to the United States is actually the sensor.
Compared with the world's mainstream sensor powerhouses, the gap in this field is even bigger than our gap in the chip field.
You must know that sensors are the future, such as the 5G era that some people talk about every day, and the era of the Internet of Things is coming.
The Internet of Everything seems to be very simple, but the Internet of Everything really seems to be very simple.
It is to use the Internet to remotely control and operate various first-generation smart devices.
But the question is, what logic do you use when your smart device works.
For example, when a sweeping robot is working, there is already a wall in front of it. How should it perceive that there is a wall in front of it and make a detour?
This requires sensors to tell him.
And so in future smart devices, what we need will be thousands of sensors.
And in this regard, to be honest, we are really weak.
There are now more than 20,000 sensors of all categories in the world, and the truly sophisticated ones are almost all in the hands of the United States, Japan and Germany.
The most powerful among them is the United States!
In our country, although we claim to be able to produce all types of industrial products, we can only produce about 3,000 types of sensors in our country.
And most of them are concentrated in low-end, low-precision sensor types.
As for the high-end, such as optics, acoustics, vibration sensing, and even taste sensing, we are seriously missing these.
Before this, Huang Haibin was most troubled by this, but some time ago, he got to know such an unknown company as Xinghuo Technology.
Because the Ninth Laboratory has accumulated a lot of equipment, which is the sensor purchased from them.
And their sensors are very good to use, even in Huang Haibin's view, they are no worse than the sensors in the United States and Japan.
So this problem is temporarily solved.
And with the sensor, the operating system design of the surgical robot is not so difficult!
Because he has been in the United States for so many years, in fact, he mainly does this part of the work.
In fact, in the early years, the company that produced the Da Vinci surgical robot, Intuitive Surgery, cooperated with MIT.
In fact, many parts of the software and hardware development of surgical robots were completed by the MIT team for this company.
When Huang Haibing was at MIT, several software development project teams he participated in actually helped Intuitive Surgery to improve Da Vinci's operating system.
So in this regard, he has very rich experience.
Later, he went to Silicon Valley. After joining Google, he participated in the hardware development of medical robots led by Google in Google's medical service department.
It is precisely in terms of hardware robotic arms that he has a solution to bypass the patents of the Americans, and in terms of system design, he can also design a set independently.
Therefore, if Huang Haibin saved himself a surgical robot, his chances of winning would be even higher!
But now when it comes to the last problem that restricts him, that is the problem of 3D imaging of surgical robots.
That is, surgical navigation technology!
And this set of technology can be said to be the initial key step of the control system of the surgical robot!
To put it bluntly, it is how to make the robotic arm of the surgical robot accurately reach the surgical area during the operation.
You should know that when doctors worked manually in the past, they could directly operate on the patient's stomach, exposing the surgical field directly.
Therefore, it is easy to find the diseased part of the patient and carry out the next operation.
It is different when using surgical robots, because the principle of this equipment is intelligent endoscopic surgery.
To put it bluntly, there is no surgery, a hole is punched in the patient's stomach, and then the robotic arm is stretched in, directly reaching the patient's diseased part, and the operation is performed.
But the problem is that the size and shape of internal organs in each person's stomach are different.
And after your robotic arm penetrates in, how to avoid those key vital parts, without damaging the blood vessels, and then accurately reach the surgical area is a big problem.
After all, the mechanical arm is not like a human hand, it can be soft or hard, this thing is hard metal.
If a route is wrong, you may just give the patient a ruptured liver, and the patient will die before the operation begins.
So at this time, surgical navigation technology is needed to debut!
In fact, the principle of this technology is also very simple, that is, before using the surgical robot for surgery, the hospital needs to take various radiographs for the patient.
From X-ray, to CT, to PET, or MRI, you have to do it all.
Then specialized doctors will carry out 3D modeling based on these different perspective pictures.
Then the 3D modeling of the patient's diseased area is imaged in the computer of the main console.
It is required to restore the ratio of imaging, which must be 100%.
Then, after the modeling is successful, the doctor will operate the robot before the operation, and conduct a simulation experiment on the surgical path in a simulated environment.
For example, the angle and depth at which the robotic arm enters, and where the end of the robotic arm stops, and then locks the robotic arm and so on.
Before the operation, it is necessary to practice many times until it reaches the proficient position.
After many times of practice, the doctors will start the operation when they find the touch.
At this time, the probability of success of the operation has increased from less than 50% to 80% or even more.
And this is one of the main reasons why surgical robots are very expensive to operate on humans.
Because you have to come to almost all high-priced imaging equipment to complete the work of 3D modeling.
In this regard, we are also relatively weak, because 3D modeling requires a set of very powerful software tools.
And this aspect is also our most missing technology.
But in the Ninth Laboratory, this is not a problem at all, because we happen to have a self-service medical examination center, and the 3D perspective imaging equipment in it is the most amazing that Huang Haibin has ever seen...
And it is precisely because of this 3D perspective imaging equipment that Huang Haibin resigned from his job in the United States and joined the Ninth Laboratory.
In fact, his ideal has always been to develop a surgical robot by himself.
Although there were many problems before, those problems can be bypassed if you think of a way.
But only this perspective imaging, 3D modeling, has always been the most troublesome problem for Huang Haibin.
On the one hand, all the equipment costs too much to use, and on the other hand, the 3D modeling tools have always been the core of technology strictly controlled by large foreign companies.
Otherwise, you think, why so far in the world, only the Intuitive Sense Company in the United States can produce surgical robots.
Even Germany and Japan are so strong in hard technology, why can't they produce such a robot?
Bad, it's just this place.
The principle of positioning and navigation sounds simple, but it is definitely the hardest part if you really want to do it, because if you fail to do it right, you will kill the patient on the operating bed.
It is very likely that the operation is over before it even begins.
So this modeling technique is the most difficult step.
You need to input the pictures taken by X-rays, CT machines, PET, MRI and other perspective imaging equipment, and the collected data into a system, and then generate a one-to-one model of the patient's internal environment.
Then use the computer to conduct virtual simulation exercises, so as to find the best path for the robotic arm to enter the patient's body and the best surgical plan.
It can be said that without this step, your operation would not need to be carried out at all!