2020/10/28 by Aleks Attanasio, Bruno Scaglioni, Elena De Momi +2 · 2 citations
Engineering · Mathematics · Medicine · Physics and Astronomy · #Artificial intelligence #Autonomy #Computer science #Engineering #Field (mathematics) #Geography #Human–computer interaction #Mathematics #Micro and Nano Robotics #Plan (archaeology) #Political science #Robot #Robotics #Soft Robotics and Applications #Surgical Simulation and Training #Systems engineering #Task (project management)
paper · doi:10.1146/annurev-control-062420-090543
openalex publication_date 2020/10/28 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
This review examines the dichotomy between automatic and autonomous behaviors in surgical robots, maps the possible levels of autonomy of these robots, and describes the primary enabling technologies that are driving research in this field. It is organized in five main sections that cover increasing levels of autonomy. At level 0, where the bulk of commercial platforms are, the robot has no decision autonomy. At level 1, the robot can provide cognitive and physical assistance to the surgeon, while at level 2, it can autonomously perform a surgical task. Level 3 comes with conditional autonomy, enabling the robot to plan a task and update planning during execution. Finally, robots at level 4 can plan and execute a sequence of surgical tasks autonomously.