Development of the FBG force sensor for Minimally Invasive Surgery and the assessment of the efficacy of force-reflection ability

Abstract

Minimally invasive surgery (MIS) is a broad term to describe all kinds of surgery to minimize injury to the patient. MIS lessens pain, the need for post-surgical pain medication, scarring, and the likelihood of incisional complications. But there is a constraint of the degree of freedom (DoF) because bar of tools are inserted through ports of incision points. In addition, force-feedback is also impaired because of the long and thin bar of surgical tools. Recently, minimally invasive robotic surgery (MIRS), such as Da VinciTM has been introduced to solve motion constraint problems in MIS. As a consequence, dexterity of tool and tissue manipulation has been considerably augmented. However, force-feedback is totally eliminated. Many researchers insist that force-feedback could play a very important role. Some researchers presented the possibilities of the safe surgery. M.Zhou et al. mentioned that injury to the bile ducts during cholecystectomy occurs at a rate of 0.41-1.1%, compared to 0-0.4% in open surgery,which is three times higher in open surgery due to lack of force-feedback. E. U. Schirmbeck et al. emphasized the damage due to the collision of the instru-ments would be avoidable. Some other researchers paid attention to a better manipulation. L. Moody expected operating time would be reduced. Force-feedback information allows determination of the force applied to the tissue of the patient without damaging the tissue. Appropriate applied forces are critical in creating knots of sutures that should be firm enough to hold but do not break sutures or damage tissue. C.R.Wagner et al. verified that the absence of force feedback increased the average force magnitude applied to the tissue by at least 50%, and increased the peak force magnitude by at least a factor of 2. But, even up-to-date com-mercialized MIRS systems are still missing force-feedback. In the previous research, there has been some effort to measure and reproduce force information. Seibold et al...