Visual and Haptic Simulation of Linear Viscoelastic Tissue Behavior Based on Experimental Data

We have developed a new numerical scheme for simulating linear viscoelastic tissue behavior modeled by FEM. We have integrated experimentally-measured viscoelastic tissue properties into our model for realistic force feedback to the user. A new precomputation method based on superposition principle was proposed for real-time computation of nodal displacements and interaction forces. We achieved stable haptic interactions by executing the viscoelastic model at 100Hz while the haptic loop was updated at 1KHz. The developed model and the proposed pre-computation approach have been both validated using ANSYS.