A robotic surgical system for a minimally invasive procedure involving a planned tool trajectory through a planned incision point into a patient. The robotic surgical system employs an optical end-effector (50) (e.g., a laser point or an endoscope), a RCM robot (40) (e.g., a concentric arc robot), and a robot controller (60). In operation, the robot controller (60) controls an optical pointing by the RCM robot (40) of the optical end-effector (50) to one or more markers attached to the patient, and further controls an axial alignment by the RCM robot (40) of the optical end-effector (50) to the planned tool trajectory as illustrated within a volume image of the patient based on a registration of the remote center-of-motion to the planned incision point as illustrated within the volume image of the patient derived from the optical pointing.
