Optimizing the Surgeon-Robot Interface: The Effect of Control-Display Gain and Zoom Level on Movement Time

While many advances have been made in surgical robotics technology, even for surgeons with relatively high levels of robotic surgery experience, many tasks take less time to perform manually. Although there are other benefits to surgical robotics that may outweigh task completion time, relatively lower efficiency will hinder the adoption of this technology. This study focused on two interface parameters: Control-Display Gain (CDG, i.e., the amount of robot movement resulting from a given robot controller movement) and the optical Zoom level that defines the working field of view. Results from a study with 10 participants suggest that CDG is a promising interface parameter for optimizing movement time in robot-assisted surgical tasks. The results have implications for the development and implementation of intelligent surgeon-robot interface technology and hold the potential to greatly improve the efficiency of robotic-assisted surgery techniques.