title: Tactile optical sensor for use in minimal invasive surgery.
abstract: In minimal invasive surgery high sensory palpation of the organs is largely lost. It is the purpose of this work to recover tactile sensing for the surgeon. To achieve this goal, a new tactile optical pressure sensor has been developed which allows to display 64 measuring points on a 0.64 cm2 surface area with a digital resolution of 12 bits. The sensor has been conceived for application in laparoscopic grasping forceps and can also be integrated into a sensing rod, both 15 mm in outside diameter. This optical sensor allows us to display graphically indurations spread in the tissue. Furthermore, the measured values serve to activate a vibrotactile display unit for tactile feedback onto the surgeon's fingertip. In order to obtain further information about the requirements for an analog tactile display, an actuatorarray with 144 pins on a 4 cm2 surface area was built. The array allows various test objects to be recognized in a true scale presentation by exploratory movements of the fingers.
authors.affiliation: Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe GmbH, Hauptabteilung Ingenieurtechnik, Karlsruhe, Germany. hafi@hit.fzk.de
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Fischer
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Trapp
mesh_terms: D003196:Computer Graphics; D003198:Computer Simulation; D003199:Computer Systems; D003626:Data Display; D005246:Feedback; D006801:Humans; D020706:Laparoscopes; D019060:Minimally Invasive Surgical Procedures; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000295:instrumentation; D014110:Touch; D014584:User-Computer Interface