A Haptic Interface for Interventional Radiology

Low trauma, reduced costs, fast recovery are few factors why minimally invasive surgery (MIS) is taking over classical surgical methods. Interventional Radiology (IR) is a MIS technique where thin tubular instruments are steered through the patient’s vascular system under the X-ray imaging. These procedures demand highly trained and experienced specialists. A computer-based haptic interface is proposed as a quality training environment. The system is composed of a virtual reality (VR) environment and force feedback units for the surgical instruments. This paper describes the 4 degrees of freedom (DOFs) haptic interface that has been developed for this purpose.