Formal verification of robotic surgery tasks by reachability analysis

In this paper we discuss the application of formal methods for the verification of properties of control systems designed for autonomous robotic systems. We illustrate our proposal in the context of surgery by considering the automatic execution of a simple action such as puncturing. To prove that a sequence of subtasks planned on pre-operative data can successfully accomplish the surgical operation despite model uncertainties, we specify the problem by using hybrid automata. We express the requirements of interest as questions about reachability properties of the hybrid automaton model. Then, we use the tool Ariadne to study how the choice of the control parameters and the measurement error affect the safety of the system.