title: A haptic pedal for surgery assistance.
abstract: The research and development of mechatronic aids for surgery is a persistent challenge in the field of robotic surgery. This paper presents a new haptic pedal conceived to assist surgeons in the operating room by transmitting real-time surgical information through the foot. An effective human-robot interaction system for medical practice must exchange appropriate information with the operator as quickly and accurately as possible. Moreover, information must flow through the appropriate sensory modalities for a natural and simple interaction. However, users of current robotic systems might experience cognitive overload and be increasingly overwhelmed by data streams from multiple modalities. A new haptic channel is thus explored to complement and improve existing systems. A preliminary set of experiments has been carried out to evaluate the performance of the proposed system in a virtual surgical drilling task. The results of the experiments show the effectiveness of the haptic pedal in providing surgical information through the foot.
authors.affiliation: CEIT and TECNUN, University of Navarra, Paseo Manuel Lardizábal 15, 20018 San Sebastián, Spain. Electronic address: idiaz@ceit.es.
authors.forename: Iñaki
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Díaz
authors.affiliation: CEIT and TECNUN, University of Navarra, Paseo Manuel Lardizábal 15, 20018 San Sebastián, Spain. Electronic address: jjgil@ceit.es.
authors.forename: Jorge Juan
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Gil
authors.affiliation: CEIT and TECNUN, University of Navarra, Paseo Manuel Lardizábal 15, 20018 San Sebastián, Spain. Electronic address: mlouredo@ceit.es.
authors.forename: Marcos
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Louredo
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D004867:Equipment Design; D025461:Feedback, Physiological; D005260:Female; D005528:Foot; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D065287:Robotic Surgical Procedures / Q000295:instrumentation*; D012371:Robotics / Q000295:instrumentation; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D014584:User-Computer Interface
keywords: Assisted surgery; Haptic pedal; Human–robot interaction