Towards quantifying surgical suturing skill with force, motion and image sensor data

This work contributes towards the vision of a suture platform that is able to objectively quantify suturing skill by integrating data from multiple sensing modalities. A first step towards such a platform is the synchronization of data from multiple sensor streams and perhaps even multiple systems. We present the design of a novel suture platform with force and motion sensors as well as video capture for recording hand motion. Software methods to synchronize these data, as well as a Graphical User Interface (GUI) that extracts suture cycle data is created. Results indicate that sensor data was successfully synchronized using time-offset calculation. Sensor data was extracted for individual suture cycles for all participants including average force, peak force, average acceleration, peak acceleration and time to complete suture. Our results indicate the viability of the system to synchronize sensor data, enabling its use to provide objective feedback to trainees regarding their suturing skills.