​Seminar on Medical Robot Systems for Laparoscopic, Endoscopic, Microscopic Surgeries

This talk will present research on medical robot systems of KAIST Center for Future Medical Robotics. We have developed Bed-mounted modular laparoscopic surgery robot (APOLLON), Flexible endoscopic surgery robot (K-FLEX), and Multi-purpose micro surgery robot (easyMicro) by considering the benefits to surgeon with improved convenience, to patient with minimum invasiveness, and to hospital with affordable costs.

Bed-mounted modular laparoscopic surgery robot (APOLLON) has been developed featuring modularized compact robot arm that the required number of robot arms can be attached to the patient bed depending on the requirement of target surgery. Compared to the conventional column-mounted surgical robot system, APOLLON can provide less interference of robot arms, easy positioning, and larger access space for surgeon. The latest commercialization version of APOLLON has successfully performed the in-vivo test with porcine model.

The flexible endoscopic surgery robot (K-FLEX) can perform dexterous robotic surgery through a curved and narrow pathway by adding small robot arms to the flexible overtube. Due to the flexibility of the overtube, the robot can be usefully used to access to the lesion located at the deep area which is hardly reached by conventional surgery robots. The robot arms provide dexterous motion for performing a surgical task in confined space. Several ex-vivo and in-vivo animal experiments had shown the effectiveness and feasibility of the flexible endoscopic surgery robot in endoscopic procedures.

Multi-purpose microscopic surgery robot (easyMicro) has been developed featuring dual-delta mechanism that can produce both macro and micro motion as well as both remote center motion and 6-DoF motion for applying various micro surgeries requiring different precision and workspace. Several bench-top tests had shown the feasibility of the micro surgery robot in vascular intraocular surgery and nerve-vascular reconstruction surgery.

Based on our research experience over the last 20 years, we are planning to commercialize our research outputs with our start-up company, EasyEndo Surgical Inc. We believe our medical robot technologies will provide advantages beyond conventional technologies.

Dong-Soo Kwon is a Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Director of the Human-Robot Interaction Research Center, Director of the Center for Future Medical Robotics. He is serving the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS) as a member of the Administrative Committee (AdCom).  In addition, He is the founder CEO of EasyEndo Surgical Inc., Chairman of the board of directors of Korea Institute of Robot and convergence (KIRO), and a member of National Academy of Engineering of Korea (NAEK).
His research deals with Medical Robotics, Haptics, and Human-Robot Interaction. He has contributed to the advancement of several robot venture companies by technology transfer. Recently, he has established a start-up company based on his medical robot research results.
He had worked as the Research Staff in the Telerobotics section at Oak Ridge National Laboratory from 1991 to 1995. He was a Graduate Research Assistant in Flexible Automation Lab. at Georgia Institute of Technology from 1985 to 1991, and the Section Chief, Manager at R&D Group of Kanglim Co., Ltd from 1982 to 1985. He received the Ph.D. in the Department of M.E. at Georgia Institute of Technology in 1991, M.S. in the M.E. at KAIST in 1982, and B.S. in the M.E. at Seoul National University in Korea in 1980.