Smart Handheld Surgical Tool with Haptic Feedback

Abstract

The target of this project was to come up with a handheld surgical tool adapting a tactile feedback system, to overcome inadequate sensation in minimally invasive and telemanipulation based robotic surgery. A 3-degree-of-freedom (DOF) hall effect sensor and three tactile displays make up the instrument. Using the Hall Effect transduction concept, the sensor may be simply incorporated in the tool. The sensor detects the amplitude and direction of the 3-DOF force acting on the tool tip. The tactile display stimulates the fingertip that is holding the tool in order to relay the contact force information measured by the sensor. In this project, a tool prototype is created and built. Its performance is experimentally validated. The surgical tool will be equipped to differentiate between different tactile surfaces as well as the hardness of a surface or object and provide haptic feedback to the operator, allowing the surgeon to feel as though he is touching the subject with his own hands. In this work, a prototype of the tool is designed and fabricated.