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Methods and mechanisms for contact feedback in a robot-assisted minimally invasive environment

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Abstract

Providing a surgeon with information regarding contacts made between instruments and tissue during robot-assisted interventions can improve task efficiency and reliability. In this report, different methods for feedback of such information to the surgeon are discussed. It is hypothesized that various methods of contact feedback have the potential to enhance performance in a robot-assisted minimally invasive environment. To verify the hypothesis, novel mechanisms needed for incorporating contact feedback were designed, including a surgeon–robot interface with full force feedback capabilities and a surgical end-effector with full force sensing capabilities, that are suitable for minimally invasive applications. These two mechanisms were used to form a robotic “master–slave” test bed for studying the effect of contact feedback on the system and user performance. Using the master–slave system, experiments for surgical tasks involving soft tissue palpation were conducted. The performance of the master–slave system was validated in terms of criteria that assess the accurate transmission of task-related information to the surgeon, which is critical in the context of soft tissue surgical applications. Moreover, using a set of experiments involving human subjects, the performance of several users in carrying out the task was compared among different methods of contact feedback.

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Notes

  1. As discussed later, the main reason for this is that any contact made between the da Vinci’s instruments and the patient’s body is estimated from outside the patient rather than through direct measurement from inside.

  2. The relationship between the indenting force/torque and the deformation of biologic tissue, such as liver, is linear for small deformations [7], but tends to become nonlinear (2nd order) for large deformations [20]. As can be seen, the data collected from the silicon-based phantom is in good agreement with a second order stress-strain relationship, implying that it closely approximates real tissue.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the Ontario Research and Development Challenge Fund under grant 00-May-0709, infrastructure grants from the Canada Foundation for Innovation awarded to the London Health Sciences Centre (CSTAR) and the University of Western Ontario, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada under grants RGPIN-1345 and RGPIN-227612, and the Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Systems under a CSA-IRIS grant.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Canadian Surgical Technologies and Advanced Robotics, London Health Sciences Centre, London, Ontario, N6A 5A5, Canada

    M. Tavakoli, A. Aziminejad, R. V. Patel & M. Moallem

  2. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, N6A 5B9, Canada

    M. Tavakoli, A. Aziminejad, R. V. Patel & M. Moallem

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  1. M. Tavakoli
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  2. A. Aziminejad
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  3. R. V. Patel
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  4. M. Moallem
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Correspondence to M. Tavakoli.

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Tavakoli, M., Aziminejad, A., Patel, R.V. et al. Methods and mechanisms for contact feedback in a robot-assisted minimally invasive environment. Surg Endosc 20, 1570–1579 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00464-005-0582-y

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