Toward In-Vivo Force and Motion Measurement for Vascular Surgery

In-vivo measurement of force/torque and translation/rotation signals between the catheter and vessels during vascular surgery operations could provide a ground-truth data set for constructing and evaluating haptics-enabled surgical simulation systems. In this paper, we introduce a solution to measure both the translation/rotation of the catheter and the pushing/retracting resistance force and twisting resistance torque caused by multiregion contacts between the catheter and the vascular wall. The prototype has been validated with manipulation experiments of inserting a catheter into a vascular phantom model. The results illustrate that the device can detect collisions between the catheter and the vascular walls. Subtle force/torque changes caused by changes of movement direction can be detected. Force/torque changes at some critical point, such as the intersection point of vessels, can also be detected. The measurement of the catheter position can cover required ranges of translation or rotation.