Towards teleoperated needle insertion with haptic feedback controller

This paper presents the performance of a needle insertion teleoperated system with haptic feedback. Through a haptic device, the surgeon tele-operates the surgical needle, fixed on the remote robot that may evolve in free space or in contact. In free space, the surgeon feels the motion of the robot. During the needle insertion, the puncture of the tissue involves an abrupt and large change in the magnitude of the applied force. To perform and improve the tele-operated task, an on-line transparency improvement is achieved using the environment stiffness estimation. The transparency is improved based on the stability of the haptic feedback teleoperation scheme in which we distinguish between the voluntary and involuntary operator position. The quality of telepresence allows the surgeon to perform and exactly characterize the needle insertion phases without using additional transition detection techniques. To assess the proposed teleoperation scheme, a surgical needle rigidly attached to the robot and ex-vivo tissues are used.