Needle Insertion in Simulated Soft Tissue

Abstract

This chapter presents the very first application of the cutaneous-only sensory subtraction approach in teleoperation. It considers a simulated needle insertion in soft tissue along one direction. Part of the needle workspace is protected by a forbidden-region stiff active constraint, which is a common scenario for biopsies, deep brain stimulation and functional neurosurgery. Subjects are required to insert the needle inside the simulated soft tissue and stop the motion of the tool as soon as the presence of the stiff constraint is felt. The motion of the needle is controlled through an Omega 3 haptic interface. Accordingly to the sensory subtraction approach, the haptic feedback provided by the Omega 3 is substituted with cutaneous feedback provided by a pair of ungrounded fingertip cutaneous devices. Experiments show that the proposed cutaneous-only feedback approach, other than being intrinsically stable, improves teleoperation performance with respect to other sensory substitution techniques, such as the one using visual feedback in substitution of haptic feedback.