Evaluating the role of vision and force feedback in minimally invasive surgery: New automated laparoscopic grasper and a case study

Abstract

Conventional laparoscopic tools do not have the ability of providing force feedback to a surgeon during surgical procedures. Loss of haptic feedback in MIS procedures is a disadvantage to surgeons since they are conventionally used to palpating tissues to diagnose whether the tissue is normal or abnormal. Therefore, a need exists to incorporate force feedback into laparoscopic tools. We have developed a laparoscopic grasper with force feedback capability to help surgeons characterize tissues. Through our interface, the surgeon can feel the tissue grasping forces while interacting with the PHANToM (haptic interface device). Our laparoscopic tool has a modular design for easy conversion between a grasper, cutter, and dissector. We have done several experiments to test two hypotheses with human subjects (20 subjects; 10 surgeons and 10 non-surgeons) to characterize tissues of varying hardness using only vision, only force, and simultaneous vision and force feedback. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2003.