Evaluation of Force Feedback in Minimally Invasive Robotic Surgery

⎯ Despite the fact that minimally invasive robotic surgery provides many advantages for patients like reduced trauma and shorter recovery times, the lack of force feedback complicates the application of available surgery systems. We present an evaluation platform which emulates the functionality of such a system. Additionally it is extended by a high fidelity force sensory and feedback. For evaluation purposes we focus on instrumental knot-tying and linked problems like accidental suture material breaking and instrument collision. The manual execution of certain surgical tasks profits from a high-fidelity haptic feedback. The experiments show that this auxiliary feature prevents the surgeon from potentially harmful mistakes like tissue damage or yarn or needle break. Keywords⎯ force feedback, robotic surgery, minimally invasive surgery