Palpation Simulator of Beating Aorta for Cardiovascular Surgery Training

Abstract

In field of cardiovascular surgeries, palpation of aorta plays important roles in decision of surgical site. This paper develops palpation simulator of aorta based on a finite element based physical model. The proposed model calculates soft tissue deformation according to the affection of inner pressure and the operation of a surgeon. The proposed method is implemented on a prototype with dual PHANToM device. Experimental results confirmed our model achieves real time simulation of the surgical palpation. Keywords: finite element method, virtual reality, palpation, medical education. © 2003, The Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. All rights reserved.