Effect of force feedback on performance of robotics-assisted suturing

This paper is aimed at exploring the effect of force feedback on the performance of a knot-tightening task in robotics-assisted minimally invasive surgery (RAMIS). In this work, we evaluate performance during the knot-tightening task in three scenarios: without force feedback, with visual force feedback and with direct force reflection on the subject´s hand. Different performance measures have been implemented: quality of the knot, amount and consistency of the tightening force applied on the suture, user´s control of the instrument, tissue damage, and task completion time. Seven subjects participated in this study and were asked to tighten the second throw of surgical knots using a dual arm teleoperation system that is capable of force reflection in 7 Degrees of Freedom (DOFs), 6-DOF rigid body motion plus the gripper. The results show that visual force feedback allows superior performance in the quality of the suture knots with high consistency in the tightening force, while direct force feedback can significantly improve the user´s control of the instrument.