Microfabricated Tactile Sensors for Minimally Invasive Surgery Tools

Minimally invasive surgery (MIS) procedures have been
growing rapidly for the past couple of decades. In
MIS operations, endoscopic tools are inserted through
a small incision on human s body. Although these
procedures have many advantages such as fast recovery
time, minimum damage to human body and reduced post
operative complications, it does not provide any
tactile feedback to the surgeon because the fingers
cannot reach and palpate the target organs. Our sense
of touch indicates the shape, size, quality and
temperature of objects and is one of the most
important inputs to our brains for decision making.
Interaction between humans and the surrounding
environment during different manual tasks supplies
useful information. Were we to be deprived of this
feeling, the story will be complicated, and our
ability will be limited with poor precision. That is
exactly the case with MIS applications. This book
reports on design, analysis, microfabrication and
characterization of an innovative piezoelectric
tactile sensor to be integrated with MIS and surgical
robotics manipulators. The contribution of this work
is to bring the level of feel of touch of human s
finger to the medical tools.

Autorentext
Received his B.Sc. degree in Mechanical/Mechatronics Eng from Jordan University of Science and Tech., Jordan. In 2007, he received the M.A.Sc degree in Mechanical Eng from Concordia University, Montreal, Canada. He concerned in the field of MEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems) and tactile sensation in the Minimally Invasive Surgery applications.

Klappentext
Minimally invasive surgery (MIS) procedures have been growing rapidly for the past couple of decades. In MIS operations, endoscopic tools are inserted through a small incision on human's body. Although these procedures have many advantages such as fast recovery time, minimum damage to human body and reduced post operative complications, it does not provide any tactile feedback to the surgeon because the fingers cannot reach and palpate the target organs. Our sense of touch indicates the shape, size, quality and temperature of objects and is one of the most important inputs to our brains for decision making. Interaction between humans and the surrounding environment during different manual tasks supplies useful information. Were we to be deprived of this feeling, the story will be complicated, and our ability will be limited with poor precision. That is exactly the case with MIS applications. This book reports on design, analysis, microfabrication and characterization of an innovative piezoelectric tactile sensor to be integrated with MIS and surgical robotics manipulators. The contribution of this work is to bring the level of feel of touch of human's finger to the medical tools.