Tissue discrimination through force-feedback from impedance spectroscopy in robot-assisted surgery

Abstract

Haptic force feedback in teleoperated robot-assisted minimally invasive surgery is difficult to implement with traditional force sensors at the tool tip. A novel approach to displaying forces to the user is explored using electric impedance spectroscopy with an electrode embedded needle. To give substance to the proposed method, user trials were conducted to compare the accuracy of inserting needles by hand and through electric impedance based haptic teleoperation. The results of the experiment suggest that, when compared to the control scenario, novice operators could accurately locate the phantom tumour with a high degree of accuracy and repeatability using force feedback derived from electric impedance spectroscopy.