1 Mehchanical, Industrial, and Aerospace Engineering Dept., Concordia University, 1515 Saint-Catherine St W, Montreal, QC H3G 2W1, Canada. Electronic address: s_hooshi@encs.concordia.ca.
2 Mehchanical, Industrial, and Aerospace Engineering Dept., Concordia University, 1515 Saint-Catherine St W, Montreal, QC H3G 2W1, Canada.
3 Mehchanical, Industrial, and Aerospace Engineering Dept., Concordia University, 1515 Saint-Catherine St W, Montreal, QC H3G 2W1, Canada. Electronic address: http://www.robosurgelab.com.

Development and assessment of a stiffness display system for minimally invasive surgery based on smart magneto-rheological elastomers.

Mater Sci Eng C Mater Biol Appl. 2020 Mar;108:110409

Authors: Hooshiar A, Alkhalaf A, Dargahi J

Abstract

In the present study, a solution to address the clinical need for stiffness display during manual and robotic minimally invasive surgery was postulated, developed, and assessed. To this end, a magneto-rheological elastomer-based stiffness display, MiTouch, was designed, developed, and analyzed. The mechanical properties of the MRE and system parameters were identified experimentally, based on which the force-field-stiffness response surface of the smart MRE was characterized. Based on the response surface, a stiffness controller was designed and verified for a set of performance requirements. A heartbeat simulation experiment showed the capability of the system for replicating desired tactile forces through stiffness control. Also, the system successfully attained an arbitrarily selected stiffness (4 N/mm) and maintained it within a bounded range (4.07 ± 0.41 N/mm). A comparison of the system performance with current literature validated its applicability for the proposed medical application.

PMID: 31924050 [PubMed - in process]