Title :
Assessing the quality of force feedback in soft tissue simulation
Author :
Basafa, Ehsan ; Sefati, Shahin ; Okamura, Allison M.
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Mech. Eng., Johns Hopkins Univ., Baltimore, MD, USA
fDate :
Aug. 30 2011-Sept. 3 2011
Abstract :
Many types of deformable models have been proposed for simulation of soft tissue in surgical simulators, but their realism in comparison to actual tissue is rarely assessed. In this paper, a nonlinear mass-spring model is used for realtime simulation of deformable soft tissues and providing force feedback to a human operator. Force-deformation curves of real soft tissue samples were obtained experimentally, and the model was tuned accordingly. To test the realism of the model, we conducted two human-user experiments involving palpation with a rigid probe. First, in a discrimination test, users identified the correct category of real and virtual tissue better than chance, and tended to identify the tissues as real more often than virtual. Second, users identified real and virtual tissues by name, after training on only real tissues. The sorting accuracy was the same for both real and virtual tissues. These results indicate that, despite model limitations, the simulation could convey the feel of touching real tissues. This evaluation approach could be used to compare and validate various soft-tissue simulators.
Keywords :
biological tissues; biomechanics; biomedical equipment; biomedical measurement; deformation; medical computing; physiological models; deformable soft tissue; discrimination test; force feedback quality; force-deformation curve; human operator; human-user experiment; nonlinear mass-spring model; palpation; real tissue; soft tissue simulation; soft-tissue simulators; surgical simulators; virtual tissue; Biological tissues; Deformable models; Force; Haptic interfaces; Real time systems; Springs; Tuning; Connective Tissue; Feedback; Humans; Models, Biological;
Conference_Titel :
Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, EMBC, 2011 Annual International Conference of the IEEE
Conference_Location :
Boston, MA
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4244-4121-1
Electronic_ISBN :
1557-170X
DOI :
10.1109/IEMBS.2011.6090933