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Robotic systems for laparoscopic minimally invasive surgery (MIS) always end up with highly sophisticated mechanisms and control schemes – making it a long and hard development process with a steep price. This paper aims to propose and realize a new, efficient and convenient strategy for building effective control systems for surgical and even other complex robotic systems.

A novel method that takes advantage of the modularization concept by integrating two middleware technologies (robot operating system and robotic technology middleware) into a common architecture based on the strengths of both was designed and developed.

Tests of the developed control system showed very low time-delay between the master and slave sides; good movement representation on the slave manipulator; and high positional and operational accuracy. Moreover, the new development strategy trial came with much higher efficiency and lower costs.

This method results in a modularized and distributed control system that is amenable to collaboratively develop; convenient to modify and update; componentized and easy to extend; mutually independent among subsystems; and practicable to be running and communicating across multiple operating systems. However, experiments show that surgical training and updates of the robotic system are still required to achieve better proficiency for completing complex minimally invasive surgical operations with the proposed and developed system.

This research proposed and developed a novel modularization design method and a novel architecture for building a distributed teleoperation control system for laparoscopic MIS.

Surgical robotics can be divided into two groups: specialized and versatile systems. Versatile systems can be used in different surgical applications, control architectures and operating room set‐ups, but often still based on the adaptation of industrial robots. Space consumption, safety and adequacy of industrial robots in the unstructured and crowded environment of an operating room and in close human robot interaction are at least questionable. The purpose of this paper is to describe the DLR MIRO, a new versatile lightweight robot for surgical applications.

The design approach of the DLR MIRO robot focuses on compact, slim and lightweight design to assist the surgeon directly at the operating table without interference. Significantly reduced accelerated masses (total weight 10 kg) enhance the safety of the system during close interaction with patient and user. Additionally, MIRO integrates torque‐sensing capabilities to enable close interaction with human beings in unstructured environments.

A payload of 30 N, optimized kinematics and workspace for surgery enable a broad range of possible applications. Offering position, torque and impedance control on Cartesian and joint level, the robot can be integrated easily into telepresence (e.g. endoscopic surgery), autonomous or soft robotics applications, with one or multiple arms.

This paper considers lightweight and compact design as important design issues in robotic assistance systems for surgery.

Paediatric congenital esophageal atresia surgery typically requires delicate and dexterous operations in a narrow and confined workspace. This study aims to develop a novel robot assisted surgical system to address these challenges.

The proposed surgical robot consists of two symmetrical slave arms with nine degree of freedoms each. Each slave arm uses a rigid-dexterous configuration and consists of a coarse positioning manipulator and a distal fine operation manipulator. A small Selective Compliance Assembly Robot Arm (SCARA) mechanism was designed to form the main component of the coarse positioning unit, ensuring to endure large forces along the vertical direction and meet the operational demands. The fine positioning manipulator applied the novel design using flexible shafts and universal joints to achieve delicate operations while possessing a high rigidity. The corresponding kinematics has been derived and then was validated by a co-simulation that was performed based on the combined use of Adams and MATLAB with considering the real robot mass information. Experimental evaluations for the tip positioning accuracy and the ring transfer tasks have been performed.

The simulation was performed to verify the correctness of the derived inverse kinematics and demonstrated the robot’s flexibility. The experimental results illustrated that the end-effector can achieve a positioning accuracy within 1.5 mm in a confined 30 × 30 × 30 mm workspace. The ring transfer task demonstrated that the surgical robot is capable of providing a solution for dexterous tissue intervention in a narrow workspace for paediatric surgery.

A novel and compact surgical assist robot is developed to support delicate operations by using the dexterous slave arm. The slave arm consists of a SCARA mechanism to avoid experiencing overload in the vertical direction and a tool manipulator driven by flexible shafts and universal joints to provide high dexterity for operating in a narrow workspace.

Robot-assisted system for minimally invasive surgery (MIS) has been attracting more and more attentions. Compared with a traditional MIS, the robot-assisted system for MIS is able to overcome or reduce defects, such as poor hand-eye coordination, heavy labour intensity and limited motion of the instrument. The purpose of this paper is to design a novel robotic system for MIS applications.

A robotic system with three separate slave arms for MIS has been designed. In the proposed robot, a new mechanism was designed as the remote centre motion (RCM) mechanism to restrain the movement of instrument or laparoscope around the incision. Moreover, an improved instrument without coupling motion between wrist and grippers was developed to enhance its manipulability. A control system architecture was also developed, and an intuitive control method was applied to realize hand-eye coordination of the operator.

For the RCM mechanism, the workspace was analyzed and the positioning accuracy of the remote centre point was tested. The results show that the RCM mechanism can be applied to MIS. Furthermore, the master-slave trajectory tracking experiments reveal that slave robots are able to follow the movement of the master manipulators well. Finally, the feasibility of the robot-assisted system for MIS is proved by performing animal experiments successfully.

This paper offers a novel robotic system for MIS. It can accomplish the anticipated results.

Existing robot-assisted minimally invasive surgery (RMIS) system lacks of force feedback, and it cannot provide the surgeon with interaction forces between the surgical instruments and patient’s tissues. This paper aims to restore force sensation for the RMIS system and evaluate effect of force sensing in a master-slave manner.

This paper presents a four-DOF surgical instrument with modular joints and six-axis force sensing capability and proposes an incremental position mode master–slave control strategy based on separated position and orientation to reflect motion of the end of master manipulator to the end of surgical instrument. Ex-vivo experiments including tissue palpation and blunt dissection are conducted to verify the effect of force sensing for the surgical instrument. An experiment of trajectory tracking is carried out to test precision of the control strategy.

Results of trajectory tracking experiment show that this control strategy can precisely reflect the hand motion of the operator, and the results of the ex-vivo experiments including tissue palpation and blunt dissection illustrate that this surgical instrument can measure the six-axis interaction forces successfully for the RMIS.

This paper addresses the important role of force sensing and force feedback in RMIS, clarifies the feasibility to apply this instrument prototype in RMIS for force sensing and provides technical support of force feedback for further clinical application.

This study aims to represent a novel closed-form solutions method based on the product of the exponential model to solve the inverse kinematics of a robotic manipulator. In addition, this method is applied to master–slave control of the minimally invasive surgical (MIS) robot.

For MIS robotic inverse kinematics, the closed-form solutions based on the product of the exponential model of manipulators are divided into the RRR and RRT subproblems. Geometric and algebraic constraints are used as preconditions to solve two subproblems. In addition, several important coordinate systems are established on the surgical robot and master–slave mapping strategies are illustrated in detail. Finally, the MIS robot can realize master–slave control by combining closed-form solutions and master–slave mapping strategy.

The simulation of the instrument manipulator based on the RRR and RRT subproblems is executed to verify the correctness of the proposed closed-form solutions. The fact that the accuracy of the closed-form solutions is better than that of the compensation method is validated by the contrastive linear trajectory experiment, and the average and the maximum tracking errors are 0.1388 mm and 0.3047 mm, respectively. In the animal experiment, the average and maximum tracking error of the left instrument manipulator are 0.2192 mm and 0.4987 mm, whereas the average and maximum tracking error of the right instrument manipulator are 0.1885 mm and 0.6933 mm. The successful completion of the animal experiment comprehensively demonstrated the feasibility and reliability of the master–slave control strategy based on the novel closed-form solutions.

The proposed closed-form solutions are error-free in theory. The master–slave control strategy is not affected by calculation error when the closed-form solutions are used in the surgical robot. And the accuracy and reliability of the master–slave control strategy are greatly improved.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a framework to support decision-makers in selecting information systems (ISs) and knowledge management systems (KMSs), by taking into consideration factors and perspectives which influence the choice.

The framework has been built on a hierarchical structure, where selection criteria and sub-criteria are defined and compared, and where alternatives are established and evaluated according to the software market trends. The application of the framework to an empirical study in two leading organizations in Jordan is provided as a validation of the proposed framework.

The paper presents and applies a methodological framework, based on the analytic hierarchy process approach, to support decision-makers in the choice and in the implementation of an IS.

Future research could address the implementation of the framework within a selected industry. Successively, the framework could be utilized to make a comparison among the selected KMSs of more organizations.

The framework is innovative in so far it can be practicably implemented in every business context, as criteria and sub-criteria cover most of the needs of any organization. It can therefore be considered as a holistic approach for supporting decision-makers in the selection process of an IS.

Influential research has posited that empirical investigation provides no evidence for the existence of white-collar/successful psychopaths. The purpose of this current paper is to review evidence for their existence and report on new, primary research that examines ethical outcomes associated with their presence.

Leading psychopathy researchers called for research using samples of white-collar workers to explore workplace psychopathy. Therefore, the authors undertook a two-stage research process to examine this. Firstly, a structured literature review sought evidence for “corporate psychopaths”, “white-collar psychopaths” and “successful psychopaths” in existing literature. Secondly, original research was undertaken among 261 Australian workers to examine this further.

Findings indicate that white-collar psychopaths exist. Where they have been found not to exist, investigation reveals that the samples used were inadequate for the purpose of attempting to find them.

Although there is an inconsistent nomenclature, white-collar, industrial, successful, organisational, workplace or corporate psychopaths do exist and are found in white-collar workplaces.

Their existence is important because findings indicate that they have a significant, ethically malign and long-lasting impact on employee well-being and organisational ethical outcomes.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is perhaps the first paper to specifically examine the literature for evidence of whether white-collar psychopaths exist. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is also the first paper to determine that corporate psychopaths are linked with aggressive humour, gender discrimination, fake corporate social responsibility and reduced communications integration.