FAROS
FAROS (Functionally Accurate RObotic Surgery) aims at improving functional accuracy through embedding physical intelligence in surgical robotics.
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FAROS (Functionally Accurate RObotic Surgery) aims at improving functional accuracy through embedding physical intelligence in surgical robotics.
KU Leuven, Belgium
Sorbonne University, France
King’s College London, United Kingdom
University of Zurich, Switzerland
SpineGuard, France
Functional accuracy: The degree to which the functional outcome of the surgery conforms to the expected value for a successful complication-free operation (functional objective).
FAROS has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101016985
Highlights
- Robotics is widely considered as a key enabler to improve and standardise patient outcome but autonomy is mostly non-existent in commercial surgical robots.
- Modern robotic approaches target absolute geometric precision, but in the context of surgery, functional accuracy, i.e. relative to target anatomic and functional structures, is what matters.
- FAROS will construct a functional representation of the surgical task fusing key non-visual sensing.
- In FAROS, deep machine learning will interpret intraoperative data, linking assembled knowledge to autonomously execute surgical actions at operating rates far beyond human response capabilities.
- FAROS will showcase this new way to operate surgical robots on autonomously executed critical steps in spine surgery, where it is common knowledge that pre-operative planning quickly becomes obsolete and conventional sensors have hitherto failed to establish a faithful representation of the scene.
Recent Posts
Last April, a significant milestone was achieved when our team of researchers successfully integrated, tested, and validated the FAROS robotic system under realistic conditions in the OR-X over the course of a week. This Integration Week marked the culmination of years of excellent and focused collaboration with our international partners.
Congratulations to Martin Huber, Christos Bergeles, Tom Vercauteren, and Christopher Mower for winning the award for the best open-source software at the Hamlyn Symposium’s Workshop: Open-Source Software for Surgical Technologies.
The work aims at community building for the KUKA LBR surgical robot and enables accelerated research and deployment with production level software. The core software is implemented in C++ with first-class ROS 2 integration and thus allows interfacing from other programming languages such as Python, Rust, you name it.
Emmanuel Vander Poorten and Christoff Laux were invited to give a presentation during the European Robotics Forum (ERF) in Rimini, Italy. FAROS was elected as a success story from EU funded projects, following a very selective evaluation process.
Meet the Team
Principal Investigators
Emmanuel Vander Poorten
Associate Professor - Surgical Robotics, Haptic Interfacing, Medical Devices, Surgical Training
KU Leuven, Belgium
Philipp Fürnstahl
Professor of Orthopedic Computer Science
University of Zurich, Switzerland
Balgrist University Hospital, Switzerland
Co-investigators and Core Staff
Mazda Farshad
Professor and Chair of Orthopaedic Surgery
University of Zurich, Switzerland
Balgrist University Hospital, Switzerland
Reto Sutter
Professor and Chief of Radiology
University of Zurich, Switzerland
Balgrist University Hospital, Switzerland
Researchers
Christoph Laux
Consultant Spine Surgery
University of Zurich, Switzerland
Balgrist University Hospital, Switzerland
Nicola A. Cavalcanti
Clinical Researcher
University of Zurich, Switzerland
Balgrist University Hospital, Switzerland
Fabio Carrillo
Post-Doctoral Fellow
University of Zurich, Switzerland
Balgrist University Hospital, Switzerland
Aidana Massalimova
PhD Student
University of Zurich, Switzerland
Balgrist University Hospital, Switzerland
External Advisory Board
Stamatia (Matina) Giannarou
Lecturer in Surgical Cancer Technology and Imaging
Imperial College London, United Kingdom
Alumni
FAROS alumni
See our previous members
Participant organisations
Collaborating organisations
