Feasibility Study of a Teleoperation System With Haptics for Tip-Force Sensing Active Needles

This paper presents the design of a teleoperation system with a haptic display for the active needles with tip-force sensing and tip-steering capabilities. The active needle design employs sensorized tendons by fiber Bragg gratings sensor (FBGs), while the teleoperation system combines a general haptic interface with electrical stimulation as its steering interface, delivering not only general force feedback but also tip-force information measured by the FBGs-based tendons to the operators. The essential features, such as tip-force sensing, teleoperation of the tip-joint, and human perception of the measured tip-force, were experimentally evaluated with their prototypes in tissue phantoms. Based on the results obtained, necessary follow-up studies were identified and suggested for the effective teleoperation of force-sensing steerable instruments in clinical environments. If successfully developed, such systems can enable surgeons to perceive clinical situations and perform operations more precisely and safely.