Update on the Collaborative Robotics Toolkit (CRTK) for Medical Robotics Research

We proposed the Collaborative Robotics Toolkit (CRTK) as a standard interface to robots and other devices typically used for medical applications. The initial motivation was to develop a common API to the da Vinci Research Kit (dVRK) and Raven II, two widely used research platforms. CRTK provides abstract (implementation agnostic) definitions of the message names and payloads used in component-based software systems, with concrete implementations for specific middleware such as ROS. To date, we have focused on the operating state and the servo interface of the hierarchical motion API. CRTK has now been implemented for several other robots, haptic devices, tracking systems, force sensors, and motor controllers. Although it has proven useful, there is still much to be done and we invite the open source community to join this effort.