title: A force-sensing surgical tool with a proximally located force/torque sensor.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Robotic surgery has seen a rapid increase in popularity in the last few decades because advantages such as increased accuracy and dexterity can be realized. These systems still lack force-feedback, where such a capability is believed to be beneficial to the surgeon and can improve safety.
  
  
  METHODS
  In this paper a force-feedback enabled surgical robotic system is described in which the developed force-sensing surgical tool is discussed in detail. The developed surgical tool makes use of a proximally located force/torque sensor, which, in contrast to a distally located sensor, requires no miniaturization or sterilizability.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Experimental results are presented, and indicate high force sensing accuracies with errors <0.09 N.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  It is shown that developing a force-sensing surgical tool utilizing a proximally located force/torque sensor is feasible, where a tool outer diameter of 12 mm can be achieved. For future work it is desired to decrease the current tool outer diameter to 10 mm. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
authors.affiliation: Robotics and Mechatronics Research Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Monash University, Clayton, 3800, Australia.
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Schwalb
authors.affiliation: Robotics and Mechatronics Research Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Monash University, Clayton, 3800, Australia.
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Shirinzadeh
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, Monash Medical Centre, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Monash University, Clayton, 3800, Australia.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Smith
mesh_terms: D002138:Calibration; D005246:Feedback; D006112:Gravitation; D006801:Humans; D016014:Linear Models; D019060:Minimally Invasive Surgical Procedures / Q000379:methods; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D065287:Robotic Surgical Procedures / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted; D025321:Surgery, Computer-Assisted / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D019415:Torque
keywords: force-feedback enabled surgical robot; force-sensing surgical tool; minimally invasive surgery; surgical robotics