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Main Authors: Smith, Mariana, Watts, Tanner, Stern, Susheela Sharma, Burkhart, Brendan, Li, Hao, Chara, Alejandro O., Kumar, Nithesh, Ferguson, James, Acar, Ayberk, d'Almeida, Jesse F., Branscombe, Lauren, Shepard, Lauren, Ghazi, Ahmed, Oguz, Ipek, Wu, Jie Ying, Webster III, Robert J., Krieger, Axel, Kuntz, Alan
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.08490
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author Smith, Mariana
Watts, Tanner
Stern, Susheela Sharma
Burkhart, Brendan
Li, Hao
Chara, Alejandro O.
Kumar, Nithesh
Ferguson, James
Acar, Ayberk
d'Almeida, Jesse F.
Branscombe, Lauren
Shepard, Lauren
Ghazi, Ahmed
Oguz, Ipek
Wu, Jie Ying
Webster III, Robert J.
Krieger, Axel
Kuntz, Alan
author_facet Smith, Mariana
Watts, Tanner
Stern, Susheela Sharma
Burkhart, Brendan
Li, Hao
Chara, Alejandro O.
Kumar, Nithesh
Ferguson, James
Acar, Ayberk
d'Almeida, Jesse F.
Branscombe, Lauren
Shepard, Lauren
Ghazi, Ahmed
Oguz, Ipek
Wu, Jie Ying
Webster III, Robert J.
Krieger, Axel
Kuntz, Alan
contents Concentric tube robots (CTRs) offer dexterous motion at millimeter scales, enabling minimally invasive procedures through natural orifices. This work presents a coordinated model-based resection planner and learning-based retraction network that work together to enable semi-autonomous tissue resection using a dual-arm transurethral concentric tube robot (the Virtuoso). The resection planner operates directly on segmented CT volumes of prostate phantoms, automatically generating tool trajectories for a three-phase median lobe resection workflow: left/median trough resection, right/median trough resection, and median blunt dissection. The retraction network, PushCVAE, trained on surgeon demonstrations, generates retractions according to the procedural phase. The procedure is executed under Level-3 (supervised) autonomy on a prostate phantom composed of hydrogel materials that replicate the mechanical and cutting properties of tissue. As a feasibility study, we demonstrate that our combined autonomous system achieves a 97.1% resection of the targeted volume of the median lobe. Our study establishes a foundation for image-guided autonomy in transurethral robotic surgery and represents a first step toward fully automated minimally-invasive prostate enucleation.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2511_08490
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A Supervised Autonomous Resection and Retraction Framework for Transurethral Enucleation of the Prostatic Median Lobe
Smith, Mariana
Watts, Tanner
Stern, Susheela Sharma
Burkhart, Brendan
Li, Hao
Chara, Alejandro O.
Kumar, Nithesh
Ferguson, James
Acar, Ayberk
d'Almeida, Jesse F.
Branscombe, Lauren
Shepard, Lauren
Ghazi, Ahmed
Oguz, Ipek
Wu, Jie Ying
Webster III, Robert J.
Krieger, Axel
Kuntz, Alan
Robotics
Concentric tube robots (CTRs) offer dexterous motion at millimeter scales, enabling minimally invasive procedures through natural orifices. This work presents a coordinated model-based resection planner and learning-based retraction network that work together to enable semi-autonomous tissue resection using a dual-arm transurethral concentric tube robot (the Virtuoso). The resection planner operates directly on segmented CT volumes of prostate phantoms, automatically generating tool trajectories for a three-phase median lobe resection workflow: left/median trough resection, right/median trough resection, and median blunt dissection. The retraction network, PushCVAE, trained on surgeon demonstrations, generates retractions according to the procedural phase. The procedure is executed under Level-3 (supervised) autonomy on a prostate phantom composed of hydrogel materials that replicate the mechanical and cutting properties of tissue. As a feasibility study, we demonstrate that our combined autonomous system achieves a 97.1% resection of the targeted volume of the median lobe. Our study establishes a foundation for image-guided autonomy in transurethral robotic surgery and represents a first step toward fully automated minimally-invasive prostate enucleation.
title A Supervised Autonomous Resection and Retraction Framework for Transurethral Enucleation of the Prostatic Median Lobe
topic Robotics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.08490