Robotic Surgery
The aim of the use case is to create a human-agent coupled system capable of safely and effectively performing tasks in (micro)surgical environments. Specifically, the agent here refers to an exoscope on a robotic arm. Effective collaboration requires both the surgical team and the robotic agent to complement each others’ skills in a dynamic environment. For instance, the robotic microscope has to learn how best to align its position, orientation, and zoom with the activities of the members of the surgical team. This requires a mutual understanding of each upcoming surgical procedure, which is acquired during prior practice sessions, as well as dynamic adaptation during the surgery itself. The case study necessitates an inherently interdisciplinary approach, spanning topics including shared planning and reasoning, mental models and theory of mind, multimodal nonverbal behavior dynamics, situated communication interfaces, continual and lifelong learning, and collaborative ontology determination.