Visually Perceived Force Feedback in Simulated Robotic Surgery

Current robotic systems for minimally invasive surgery do not have effective means of providing haptics to the surgeon. It was hypothesized that providing an analog for force feedback through the visual channel could benefit performance in the absence of actual force feedback. An experiment was conducted to examine performance in a simple line-drawing task in a simulator box using a conventional laparoscopic grasper with inherent force feedback and a robotic manipulator with no force feedback. The task was performed on a hard surface and a soft surface. Physical deformation on the soft surface provided additional visual cues regarding the forces applied during the task. Results showed better performance, in the absence of force feedback, when the visual analog of force was provided. Task completion time was best when physical force feedback was combined with augmented visual feedback. This research has implications for the implementation of haptics in robotic surgical systems.