Modeling & Development of Haptic Device for Therapeutic Gastrointestinal Endoscopy

PROJECT DESCRIPTION:

Introduction

Haptics is a new technology that bases on the sense of touch. It relates to the ability to receive proprioceptive, tactile, and force feedback from the simulation in response to the user's actions. Such feedback is mediated by haptic interfaces, which are controlled by a computer running the simulation. Besides the interaction with virtual environment, in the area of robotic surgery, force feedback has also been proven to enhance the performance of surgeon by providing the sensation of feeling, especially in a master-slave robotic system for surgery.

In a master-slave robotic system, the surgeon carries on the surgery by controlling the master device to manipulate the slave device. Currently the most widely used system is the da Vinci surgical system. The force feedback is provided by the force/torque sensor built into the rigid shaft near to the end effector.

Motivation

With the sensation of touch, the surgeon can actually feel the force applied on the tissue during the action of pushing, pulling or cutting. However, in endoscopic treatments, traditional manual manipulative tools available for the endoscopist to utilize have limited maneuverability, and without force feedback. It goes through the instrument port in the endoscope. With this 1 DOF forceps, only simple grasp and cutting actions can be performed.

Therefore a multi-degrees of freedom manipulator is designed for the slave device. With such device, the surgeon can perform surgical procedures in endoscopic surgery that are currently performed only in open surgery.

Besides the flexibility of the endoscope, the size of the manipulator and multi-degrees of freedom, these are all challenges for the force feedback; neverthless, haptic information is essential and important to the surgeon.

Objectives

An innovative haptics device is to be developed and installed onto a multi-degrees of freedom master-slave robotic system. Group of sensors are to be designed and mounted at the slave's distal tip. Information regarding the forces experienced by the slave would be acquired and processed. The master control would in turn be actuated accordingly to give the surgeon the sensation of directly manipulating the tissue.

Advantages

• Enhance surgeon's manipulation of tissue
• Enhance safety; reduce the possibility of damaging tissue
• May increase surgeon's diagnosis of pathologies