Compensating Uncertainties in Force Sensing for Robotic-Assisted Palpation

Abstract

Force sensing in robotic-assisted minimally invasive surgery (RMIS) is crucial for performing dedicated surgical procedures, such as bilateral teleoperation and palpation. Due to the bio-compatibility and sterilization requirements, a specially designed surgical tool/shaft is normally attached to the sensor while contacting the organ targets. Through this design, the measured force from the sensor usually contains uncertainties, such as noise, inertial force etc., and thus cannot reflect the actual interaction force with the tissue environment. Motivated to provide the authentic contact force between a robotic tool and soft tissue, we proposed a data-driven force compensation scheme without intricate modeling to reduce the effects of force measurement uncertainties. In this paper, a neural-network-based approach is utilized to automatically model the inertial force subject to noise during the robotic palpation procedure, then the exact contact force can be obtained through the force compensation method which cancels the noise and inertial force. Following this approach, the genuine interaction force during the palpation task can be achieved furthermore to improve the appraisal of the tumor surrounded by the soft tissue. Experiments are conducted with robotic-assisted palpation tasks on a silicone-based soft tissue phantom and the results verify the effectiveness of the suggested method.

Design, Prototyping, and Characterization of a Micro-Force Sensor Intended for Tissue Assessment in Confined Spaces

“…M EDICINE has long used tissue palpation, a subjective technique, for assessing the health of an organ [1], [2], [3], [4], [5]. During diagnosis, manual palpation and indentation techniques have been employed to categorize abnormal tissue of the bladder, prostate, breasts, and anterior vaginal wall [6], [7], [8], [9].…”

“…During diagnosis, manual palpation and indentation techniques have been employed to categorize abnormal tissue of the bladder, prostate, breasts, and anterior vaginal wall [6], [7], [8], [9]. Using controlled tissue indentation to obtain quantitative force relaxation feedback can be a valuable diagnostic method to assist with disease prognosis [1], [10], [11], [12], [13].…”

Design of a drop-in EBI sensor probe for abnormal tissue detection in minimally invasive surgery

“…Apart from the Fluorescence imaging and ultrasound transducer, some tactile and force sensors have also been designed to provide the touch feel during the operation, thus the surgeon may palpate the tumor based on the stiffness difference between the cancer tissues and the normal tissues [6][7][8]. Based on the designed tactile or force sensing, considerable research efforts have been made for tumor localization in MIS, such as in [9] a haptic palpation probe is designed to locate the subcutaneous blood vessel in robotic assisted MIS; in [10] a novel robotic sweeping palpation method is proposed for digital rectal examination (DRE); and in [11], force sensing uncertainties during palpation is considered and a compensation framework is proposed to achieve accurate palpation. However, the above-mentioned devices or designs either are too expensive or specifically be used for robotic surgery; few of the sensor probes are available for normal laparoscopic surgery.…”