Developing a system to identify the material parameters of an organ model for surgical robot control

Accurate values of material parameters of human tissue are key elements in a surgical robot system using an organ deformation model. However, it is generally difficult to determine the values of the material parameters of human tissue to be input into the model, because the individual differences of these material properties make them inherently uncertain. In this work, we discuss a method for identifying the values of the material parameters of an organ model. This paper is also concerned with developing a method using the finite element method (FEM) and the extended Kalman filter in order to identify the values of the material parameters of an organ model. The effectiveness of the method was shown through physical experiments using a layered phantom, a three-dimensional deformation model by FEM, and ultrasound imaging equipment. The results of experiments showed that the proposed parameter-identification method improved the reproducibility of the simulation using organ models.