A sensorless force-feedback system for robot-assisted laparoscopic surgery

Carl A Nelson,Baoliang Zhao

doi:10.1080/24699322.2018.1560084

Abstract

The existing surgical robots for laparoscopic surgery offer no or limited force feedback, and there are many problems for the traditional sensor-based solutions. This paper builds a teleoperation surgical system and validates the effectiveness of sensorless force feedback. The tool-tissue interaction force at the surgical grasper tip is estimated using the driving motor's current, and fed back to the master robot with a position-force bilateral control algorithm. The stiffness differentiation experiment and tumor detection experiment were conducted. In the stiffness differentiation experiment, 43 out of 45 pairs of ranking relationships were identified correctly, yielding a success rate of 96%. In the tumor detection experiment, 4 out of 5 participants identified the correct tumor location with force feedback, yielding a success rate of 80%. The proposed sensorless force-feedback system for robot-assisted laparoscopic surgery can help surgeons regain tactile information and distinguish between the healthy and cancerous tissue.

Highlights

In the laparoscopic surgery, surgeons use long rigid tools to operate on tissues through several small incisions in the abdominal wall
The participants were allowed to manipulate the different materials with the teleoperation system up to 1 minute, to become acquainted with the different feelings when interacting with these materials
Wood Foam Sponge Wood Foam Sponge Wood Foam Sponge total of 45 pairs of relations to be identified, and the results show that only two pairs of these relations are mistaken, yielding a success rate of 96%

Summary

Introduction

Surgeons use long rigid tools to operate on tissues through several small incisions in the abdominal wall. The da Vinci Surgical System (Intuitive Surgical, California, USA), perhaps the most commercially successful surgical robot for laparoscopic surgery, offers surgeons magnified 3D HD vision, various surgical instruments with dexterity comparable to that of the human hand and enhanced ergonomics. It consists of a master-side robot and a slave-side robot and runs in a teleoperation mode. The loss of force feedback is regarded as the main concern in the existing robot-assisted laparoscopic surgery [8]

Methods

Results

Conclusion