title: Performance evaluation of haptic hand-controllers in a robot-assisted surgical system.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  This paper presents the experimental evaluation of three commercially available haptic hand-controllers to evaluate which was more suitable to the participants.
  
  
  METHODS
  Two surgeons and seven engineers performed two peg-in-hole tasks with different levels of difficulty. Each operator guided the end-effector of a Kuka manipulator that held surgical forceps and was equipped with a surgical microscope. Sigma 7, HD(2) and PHANToM Premium 3.0 hand-controllers were compared. Ten measures were adopted to evaluate operators' performances with respect to effort, speed and accuracy in completing a task, operator improvement during the tests, and the force applied by each haptic device.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The best performance was observed with the Premium 3.0; the hand-piece was able to be held in a similar way to that used by surgeons to hold conventional tools.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Hand-controllers with a linkage structure similar to the human upper extremity take advantage of the inherent human brain connectome, resulting in improved surgeon performance during robotic-assisted surgery.
authors.affiliation: Project neuroArm, Department of Clinical Neuroscience and Hotchkiss Brain Institute, University of Calgary, AB, Canada.
authors.forename: Kourosh
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Zareinia
authors.affiliation: Project neuroArm, Department of Clinical Neuroscience and Hotchkiss Brain Institute, University of Calgary, AB, Canada.
authors.forename: Yaser
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Maddahi
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Calgary, AB, Canada.
authors.forename: Canaan
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Ng
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada.
authors.forename: Nariman
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Sepehri
authors.affiliation: Project neuroArm, Department of Clinical Neuroscience and Hotchkiss Brain Institute, University of Calgary, AB, Canada.
authors.forename: Garnette R
authors.initials: GR
authors.lastname: Sutherland
mesh_terms: D002983:Clinical Competence; D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D016552:Ergometry / Q000295:instrumentation*; D005246:Feedback; D006225:Hand; D006801:Humans; D008328:Man-Machine Systems; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D065287:Robotic Surgical Procedures / Q000295:instrumentation*; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D014110:Touch; D014584:User-Computer Interface
keywords: force feedback; hand-controller; haptics; micromanipulation; performance evaluation; robot-assisted surgery