Improved Tactile Resonance Sensor for Robotic Assisted Surgery

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

32 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This paper presents an improved tactile sensor using a piezoelectric bimorph able to differentiate soft materials with similar mechanical characteristics. The final aim is to develop intelligent surgical tools for brain tumour resection using integrated sensors in order to improve tissue tumour delineation and tissue differentiation. The bimorph sensor is driven using a random phase multisine and the properties of contact between the sensor's tip and a certain load are evaluated by means of the evaluation of the nonparametric FRF. An analysis of the nonlinear contributions is presented to show that the use of a linear model is feasible for the measurement conditions. A series of gelatine phantoms were tested. The tactile sensor is able to identify minimal differences in the consistency of the measured samples considering viscoelastic behaviour. A variance analysis was performed to evaluate the reliability of the sensors and to identify possible error sources due to inconsistencies in the preparation method of the phantoms. The results of the variance analysis are discussed showing that ability of the proposed tactile sensor to perform high quality measurements.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)600-610
Number of pages11
JournalMechanical Systems and Signal Processing
Volume99
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 15 Jan 2018

Keywords

  • Brain Tumour resection
  • Multisine excitation
  • Piezoelectric Bimorph
  • Tactile sensor
  • Tissue differentiation

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Improved Tactile Resonance Sensor for Robotic Assisted Surgery'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this