The Must-Have in Robotic Heart Surgery: Haptic Feedback

The significance of haptic feedback for telemanipulated heart surgery

World Congress on Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering 2006 - IFMBE Proceedings ◽

10.1007/978-3-540-36841-0_791 ◽

2007 ◽

pp. 3134-3136 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Eva. U. Braun ◽

C. Hasselbeck ◽

H. Mayer ◽

F. Freyberger ◽

A. Knoll ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Heart Surgery ◽

Haptic Feedback

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Haptic Feedback in a Telepresence System for Endoscopic Heart Surgery

Presence Teleoperators & Virtual Environments ◽

10.1162/pres.16.5.459 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 16 (5) ◽

pp. 459-470 ◽

Cited By ~ 35

Author(s):

Hermann Mayer ◽

Istvan Nagy ◽

Alois Knoll ◽

Eva U Braun ◽

Robert Bauernschmitt ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Minimally Invasive ◽

Heart Surgery ◽

Force Feedback ◽

Haptic Feedback ◽

Suture Material ◽

Autonomous Robot ◽

Surgical Instruments ◽

Sensory Substitution ◽

Minimally Invasive Procedures ◽

Invasive Procedures

The implementation of telemanipulator systems for cardiac surgery enabled heart surgeons to perform delicate minimally invasive procedures with high precision under stereoscopic view. At present, commercially available systems do not provide force-feedback or Cartesian control for the operating surgeon. The lack of haptic feedback may cause damage to tissue and can cause breaks of suture material. In addition, minimally invasive procedures are very tiring for the surgeon due to the need for visual compensation for the missing force feedback. While a lack of Cartesian control of the end effectors is acceptable for surgeons (because every movement is visually supervised), it prevents research on partial automation. In order to improve this situation, we have built an experimental telemanipulator for endoscopic surgery that provides both force-feedback (in order to improve the feeling of immersion) and Cartesian control as a prerequisite for automation. In this article, we focus on the inclusion of force feedback and its evaluation. We completed our first bimanual system in early 2003 (EndoPAR Endoscopic Partial Autonomous Robot). Each robot arm consists of a standard robot and a surgical instrument, hence providing eight DOF that enable free manipulation via trocar kinematics. Based on the experience with this system, we introduced an improved version in early 2005. The new ARAMIS system (Autonomous Robot Assisted Minimally Invasive Surgery) has four multi-purpose robotic arms mounted on a gantry above the working space. Again, the arms are controlled by two force-feedback devices, and 3D vision is provided. In addition, all surgical instruments have been equipped with strain gauge force sensors that can measure forces along all translational directions of the instrument's shaft. Force-feedback of this system was evaluated in a scenario of robotic heart surgery, which offers an impression very similar to the standard, open procedures with high immersion. It enables the surgeon to palpate arteriosclerosis, to tie surgical knots with real suture material, and to feel the rupture of suture material. Therefore, the hypothesis that haptic feedback in the form of sensory substitution facilitates performance of surgical tasks was evaluated on the experimental platform described in the article (on the EndoPAR version). In addition, a further hypothesis was explored: The high fatigue of surgeons during and after robotic operations may be caused by visual compensation due to the lack of force-feedback (Thompson, J., Ottensmeier, M., & Sheridan, T. 1999. Human Factors in Telesurgery, Telmed Journal, 5 (2) 129–137.).

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Remote Minimally Invasive Surgery – Haptic Feedback and Selective Automation in Medical Robotics

Applied Bionics and Biomechanics ◽

10.1155/2011/765172 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 8 (2) ◽

pp. 221-236 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Christoph Staub ◽

Keita Ono ◽

Hermann Mayer ◽

Alois Knoll ◽

Heinz Ulbrich ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Minimally Invasive ◽

Heart Surgery ◽

Force Feedback ◽

Haptic Feedback ◽

Medical Robotics ◽

Contact Forces ◽

Working Environment ◽

Surgical Instruments ◽

Prediction Algorithm ◽

Robot System

The automation of recurrent tasks and force feedback are complex problems in medical robotics. We present a novel approach that extends human-machine skill-transfer by a scaffolding framework. It assumes a consolidated working environment for both, the trainee and the trainer. The trainer provides hints and cues in a basic structure which is already understood by the learner. In this work, the scaffolding is constituted by abstract patterns, which facilitate the structuring and segmentation of information during “Learning by Demonstration” (LbD). With this concept, the concrete example of knot-tying for suturing is exemplified and evaluated. During the evaluation, most problems and failures arose due to intrinsic system imprecisions of the medical robot system. These inaccuracies were then improved by the visual guidance of the surgical instruments. While the benefits of force feedback in telesurgery has already been demonstrated and measured forces are also used during task learning, the transmission of signals between the operator console and the robot system over long-distances or across-network remote connections is still a challenge due to time-delay. Especially during incision processes with a scalpel into tissue, a delayed force feedback yields to an unpredictable force perception at the operator-side and can harm the tissue which the robot is interacting with. We propose a XFEM-based incision force prediction algorithm that simulates the incision contact-forces in real-time and compensates the delayed force sensor readings. A realistic 4-arm system for minimally invasive robotic heart surgery is used as a platform for the research.

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Switched-Impedance Control of Surgical Robots in Teleoperated Beating-Heart Surgery

Journal of Medical Robotics Research ◽

10.1142/s2424905x18410039 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 03 (03n04) ◽

pp. 1841003 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Lingbo Cheng ◽

Mahdi Tavakoli

Keyword(s):

Heart Surgery ◽

Force Feedback ◽

Haptic Feedback ◽

Control Method ◽

Impedance Control ◽

Beating Heart ◽

Human Operator ◽

Beating Heart Surgery ◽

Impedance Models ◽

Fast Motions

A novel switched-impedance control method is proposed and implemented for telerobotic beating-heart surgery. Differing from cardiopulmonary-bypass-based arrested-heart surgery, beating-heart surgery creates challenges for the human operator (surgeon) due to the heart’s fast motions and, in the case of a teleoperated surgical robot, the oscillatory haptic feedback to the operator. This paper designs two switched reference impedance models for the master and slave robots to achieve both motion compensation and nonoscillatory force feedback during slave–heart interaction. By changing the parameters of the impedance models, different performances for both robots are obtained: (a) when the slave robot does not make contact with the beating heart, the slave robot closely follows the motion of the master robot as in a regular teleoperation system, (b) when contact occurs, the slave robot automatically compensates for the fast motions of the beating heart while the human operator perceives the nonoscillatory component of the slave–heart interaction forces, creating the feeling of making contact with an idle heart for the human operator. The proposed method is validated through simulations and experiments.

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