Force Measurement of Blood Vessel Gripping by Hydraulic-driven Forceps

Surgical manipulators are widely used for laparoscopic surgery. They have mainly been chosen for use in supporting human operations and in robot systems like the da Vinci surgical system. These manipulator systems are suitable for careful work, but they have a few problems. One is that the manipulators are not equipped with haptic sensing functions. Therefore, the operator must know advanced techniques for visually detecting the physical contact state during surgical operation. Such haptic sensing functions thus need to be incorporated into surgical manipulators. We have developed hydraulic-driven forceps with a micro bearing and a bellows tube that can convey haptic sense to the operator. For accurate surgical operation, the operator of the surgical manipulator must be able to feel the characteristics of the blood vessel and the organ. For example, it is necessary to feel the pulsation of the blood. In addition, the operator must be able to notice any potential rupture of a blood vessel to prevent a medical accident. We tested our system to determine if it could detect characteristic differences and changes of the blood vessel. This report describes the results and discusses the effectiveness of our system.