A Multielement Tactile Feedback System for Robot-Assisted Minimally Invasive Surgery

A multi-element tactile feedback (MTF) system has been developed to translate the force distribution, in magnitude and position, from 3times2 sensor arrays on surgical robotic end-effectors to the fingers via 3times2 balloon tactile displays. High detection accuracies from perceptual tests (> 96%) suggest that MTF may be an effective means to improve robotic control.