Measuring interaction forces in surgical telemanipulation using conventional instruments

Abstract

Minimally invasive surgery (MIS) has been an essential tool in the surgical sector for many years due to its crucial advantages compared to open surgery. To overcome remaining limitations, teleoperated MIS experienced a strong emergence. However, the widespread usage of such systems is hindered by the enormous financial hurdle. The use of standard components and conventional tools for teleoperated MIS can facilitate integration into existing hospital workflows and can be a cost-efficient and versatile approach for research purposes. To compensate for the lack of haptic feedback, some teleoperation setups inherit a sensor system allowing them to record interaction forces and display them at the user interface. In research and in commercially available systems, different positions for the sensor can be found. In this paper, mechanical interfaces for the guidance and actuation of non-wristed and wristed standard instruments are presented. Furthermore, a method for the extracorporeal measurement of interaction forces is presented, characterized, and discussed. The overall mean relative error of the magnitude of the interaction force is 9.4%, while the overall mean absolute error of the force vector is 14.4 $^{\circ }$ , both below the respective human differential perception threshold. The presented measurement method is a simple, yet sufficiently accurate approach to measure interaction forces in surgical telemanipulation.

Vibro-Acoustic Sensing of Instrument Interactions as a Potential Source of Texture-Related Information in Robotic Palpation

“…The integration of a proprietary force sensor into the end-effector comprising the vibration measurement system could solve this problem and allow for an accurate setting of contact force. A method for the measurement of interaction forces as presented in [ 46 ] could be integrated into the experiment for this purpose. With respect to an application in MIS, this would be crucial to limit the maximum force exerted on the tissue or organ.…”

Cable-Driven Mechanism Models for Sensitive and Actuated Minimally Invasive Robotic Instruments

“…The sensitive element can be positioned in the sterilized workspace, but in this case, the electronic components of the sensor can be damaged by sterilization. Another approach is to position the sensor outside the sterilized zone, such as the work proposed in [33]. However, problems of communication, sensitivity, and errors are more evident in this case because the zone of the interaction forces is not near the position where the sensor is located.…”