Measuring stiffness of organs using 2-DOF haptic surgical forceps robots

This paper proposes a method of measuring stiffness of organs using opening motion with 2-DOF haptic surgical forceps robots. Measuring stiffness of organs will be useful for making alert such as subsidiary fracture of organs to operator. Most of conventional method measures stiffness by pulling motion. However, this motion may break organs easily. On the other hand, proposed method measures stiffness by opening motion. It makes surgery using surgical forceps robots safer. Experiment shows the validity of proposed method.