1.6. Getting started

1.6.1. Accounts

Once you know you will have physical access to a dVRK, you might want to create two accounts to access some privates resources:

• Intuitive Surgical hardware wiki, http://research.intusurg.com/dvrk: please contact Intuitive to get an account created (at least one per site). This wiki contains some important documentation regarding the hardware, including unboxing instructions and wiring fixes.

• Google group for dVRK users, https://groups.google.com/d/forum/research-kit-for-davinci and research-kit-for-davinci@googlegroups.com. We strongly encourage users to send support questions using this Google group.

  1. Go to https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/research-kit-for-davinci

  2. Use the Apply for membership link to request membership.

     Note

     Don’t forget to mention your group/university so the group administrators can identify you. Your application will be rejected if you don’t provide this information.

1.6.2. Other readings

Make sure you read all the other documentation, before you get started.

• ISI Research wiki (account required): https://research.intusurg.com/dvrkwiki/index.php?title=DVRK:Docs:Main

  • dVRK User Manual

  • dVRK Unpacking Guide

  • S Console Disassembly and Vision Testing for the dVRK

• da Vinci User Manuals. These are extremely useful to understand how the real da Vinci should be set up and used:

  • da Vinci Standard

  • da Vinci Si

1.6.3. Overview

The main steps to set up a dVRK are:

• Hardware setup - The hardware setup section describes the few hardware modifications required and physical connections between the controllers and the arms as well as between the controllers and the PC.

• Compile the software with ROS - This has to be performed once per user. Each user should maintain their own version of the software in their home directory. The core software for the dVRK can be built without ROS, but we strongly recommend you use ROS and its build tools.

  • ROS 2 preferred

  • ROS 1

• Controller connectivity - This has to be performed once per computer. The goal is to make sure you have the proper hardware and OS configuration to communicate with the controllers over FireWire or Ethernet (see connectivity introduction).

• Configuration - The configuration steps have to be performed once per robotic arm. Once the configuration has been generated, we strongly recommend that you save all your configuration files to share between the users in your group. We maintain a GitHub organization (https://github.com/dvrk-config) to host the configuration files of different groups; let us know if you want a repository for your files! (contact Anton Deguet @ JHU)

• Calibration - Once the controllers are physically connected, the software has been compiled, and you have the base configuration files, you can proceed to the calibration steps to identify some values specific to each arm and controller pair. The process depends on the generation of arms:

  • Classic/Standard arms

  • Si arms

  This should be a one time step. Don’t forget to save the results of the calibration under git.

• Applications - The applications section lists the different programs provided with the dVRK. Once your system is set up and calibrated, you will mostly use the ROS dvrk_robot dvrk_system node. We also provide a few debugging and calibration utilities.

• Usage - How to use the dVRK once it is configured. The dVRK stack can also be used with different mechanical arms (haptic devices, 3D trackers…) or purely simulated (without any hardware).

• Development - The development section shows how to write your own applications on top of the dVRK software stack.