A 3-DOF compact haptic interface for endoscopic endonasal approach surgery simulation

Endoscopic endonasal approach surgery is now the preferred treatment for most pituitary and related skull base tumors. However, this procedure requires a high level of hands-on skills and rich clinical experience. During the operation, haptic feedback, as the only one sense of bidirectional information interaction, plays an important role in surgical decision-making especially for bone-drilling. Existing surgical simulators provide either no haptic device or multipurpose haptic devices, which is difficult to reproduce the characteristics of surgical tool handling. In this paper, a custom-designed 3-DOF (pitch, yaw, radial) compact haptic interface for this surgery simulation is presented. It is dedicated to mimicking the touch sense of the surgical tools inserted through the nostril. Its main innovation is the mechanism design to maintain as much fidelity of the tool handling in the surgical training as in a real operation. The mechanism design is presented in detail as well as the kinematics and the force transmission. The mechanical characteristics of this haptic interface are also analyzed and presented.