Reconstructing haptic sensing in tele-robotics surgery by non-attentive visual method

Robotic systems for minimally invasive surgery are at the frontiers of current medical practice. Adding force feedback to such systems is expected to improve their performance considerably. However, the effectiveness of minimally invasive surgery robots is limited by surgeon´s lack of haptic sensation while remotely operating the robot. Thus, reconstruction of haptic sensation has become an important research goal. Current technology is not quite able to remotely convey complete haptic sensations, moreover the need for high refresh rates may cause severe implementation problems when patient - surgeon distances are increased. Visual displays of force feedback offer a cost effective sensory substitution to haptic feedback. In this paper we present a novel methodology in which visual stimuli successfully evokes haptic sensation.