Phantom degrees of freedom for manipulating the movement of mechanical bodies

1. A method for controlling the movement of a mechanical body, the method comprising:

receiving desired movement information identifying a desired motion of a mechanical body, the mechanical body having a first number of degrees of freedom;

generating, with at least one computer, a plurality of instructions by applying the received desired movement information to a kinematic model, the kinematic model having a second number of degrees of freedom greater than the first number of degrees of freedom, the application of the desired movement information to the kinematic model including a forward-kinematic simulation of each of the second number of degrees of freedom for at least one time step in accordance with the desired motion, and each of the plurality of instructions being configured to control a corresponding one of the second number of degrees of freedom;

generating a subset of the of the plurality of instructions by discarding values for a specified degree of freedom from a result of the forward-kinematic simulation, the specified degree of freedom corresponding to one of the second number of degrees of freedom in the kinematic model and further corresponding to a missing degree of freedom in the mechanical body; and

controlling the first number of degrees of freedom of the mechanical body with the subset of the plurality of instructions.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first number of degrees of freedom of the mechanical body are controlled by transmitting the subset of the plurality of instructions to actuators associated with the mechanical body.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein each instruction of the subset of the plurality of instructions is communicated to an actuator associated with a corresponding degree of freedom of the mechanical body.

4. The method of claim 2 , wherein the mechanical body includes a manipulator assembly mechanically coupled to a tool operable to perform surgical procedures on a patient.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein generating the subset of the plurality of instructions includes discarding at least one of the generated plurality of instructions.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the desired motion includes one or more of a desired orientation of the mechanical body and a desired velocity of the mechanical body.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the information identifying the desired motion of the mechanical body includes information identifying a desired motion for each of the second number of degrees of freedom.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein receiving desired movement information includes receiving manipulation information from a first source and receiving reconfiguration information for use of a null-space from a second source.

9. A mechanical system comprising:

a linkage assembly having a first number of degrees of freedom;

a plurality of actuators coupled to the linkage assembly, each actuator being operable to control a corresponding one of the first number of degrees of freedom of the linkage assembly; and

a processor coupled to the actuators, the processor being operable to generate movement commands for actuating at least one of the actuators based on information identifying a desired motion of the linkage assembly, the movement commands being generated by operations including:

applying the information identifying the desired motion to a kinematic model having a second number of degrees of freedom greater than the first number of degrees of freedom, the application of the information including a forward-kinematic simulation of each of the second number of degrees of freedom for at least one time step in accordance with the desired motion; and

generating the movement commands by discarding values for a specified degree of freedom from a result of the forward-kinematic simulation, the specified degree of freedom corresponding to one of the second number of degrees of freedom in the kinematic model and further corresponding to a missing degree of freedom in the linkage assembly.

10. The mechanical system of claim 9 , wherein the second number of degrees of freedom includes a yaw, a pitch, and a roll of an element of the linkage assembly.

11. The mechanical system of claim 10 , wherein the first number of degrees of freedom excludes at least one of the yaw, the pitch, or the roll of the element of the linkage assembly.

12. The mechanical system of claim 9 , further comprising a remote console configured to provide the information identifying the desired motion of the second number of degrees of freedom based on a user input.

13. The mechanical system of claim 9 , wherein the linkage assembly includes a plurality of links, pairs of the plurality of links are mechanically coupled together by a corresponding one of a plurality of joints, and each joint of the plurality of joints is actuated by a corresponding one of the plurality of actuators.

14. The mechanical system of claim 9 , further comprising a tool coupled to the linkage assembly, wherein the tool has a number of end effector degrees of freedom fewer than or equal to the first number of degrees of freedom.

15. The mechanical system of claim 9 , further comprising a computer readable storage medium having instructions stored thereon that, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to generate the movement commands.

16. The mechanical system of claim 15 , wherein the processor generates instructions for the movement commands by applying the information identifying the desired motion to the kinematic model, each of the instructions being configured to control a corresponding one of the second number of degrees of freedom, and the processor transmits a subset of the plurality of instructions to the actuators so as to control the first number of degrees of freedom of the linkage assembly.

17. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having instructions stored thereon that, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to perform operations including:

receiving desired movement information identifying a desired motion of a mechanical body, the mechanical body having a first number of degrees of freedom;

generating a plurality of instructions by applying the received desired movement information to a kinematic model, the kinematic model having a second number of degrees of freedom greater than the first number of degrees of freedom, the application of the desired movement information to the kinematic model including a forward-kinematic simulation of each of the second number of degrees of freedom for at least one time step in accordance with the desired motion, and each of the instructions being configured to control a corresponding one of the second number of degrees of freedom; and

generating a subset of the of the plurality of instructions by discarding values for a specified degree of freedom from a result of the forward-kinematic simulation, the specified degree of freedom corresponding to one of the second number of degrees of freedom in the kinematic model and further corresponding to a missing degree of freedom in the mechanical body.

18. The storage medium of claim 17 , wherein the instructions further cause the computer to perform operations including:

controlling the first number of degrees of freedom of the mechanical body by transmitting the subset of the plurality of instructions to at least one actuator of the mechanical body.