Dvelopment of the Simulator for the Brain Surgery

English / Japanese

　Recently in the medical field, the skill demanded from the doctor has upgraded as the medical technology develops. But, there is a problem that young doctors have less opportunity to train for the more advanced operation technique. Nowadays, dummies, animals and body donations are used for surgical training, but by a problem that it is difficult to corresponing to many surgical method and an ethical problem to animals and body donations, the difectiveness of environment of surgical training has been actualized. So, technological developments to tell a more adovanced medical technology to young doctors is expected.
　Against this background, the surgery simulator that applies the virtual reality technology has recieved attention. Especially, the development of the surgery simulator for the brain that is extremely important internal organs in the human body is expected. So our group has researched to aim to develop the simulator for the brain surgery, and to give priority to the presentation of the reaction force using a haptic interface to get the operation feeling more exactly.

Research Outcome

1. Brain Tissue Pushing Simulation Using a Haptic Interface ([1])

　First, the simulation of the operation of pushing the brain tissue using a brain spatula, that is done at early stage of brain surgery and is necessary to understand of diseased part situation and to secure operation field, is described. An overview and a configuration of simulation system are shown at Fig. 1. This system is composed of A Compact 6-DOF Haptic Interface developed in our labolatory, a controller of the interface, a numerical calculation computer, and display. A brain apatula actually used by surgery is installed in a haptic interface and we operate it. And we simulate the brain tissue pushing operation with displaying the brain tissue and the brain spatula on the screen.

Simulation System

Fig. 1 Overview of the simulation. (Left)
　Configuration of the simulation. (Right)

2. Development of a Haptic Interface with a Pair of Actual Micro-Scissors ([2])

　Though aforementioned haptic interface has 6 degrees of feedom, a instrument in which some degrees of freedom exist, such as micro-scissors that is used to secure operation field and to cut the brain tissue, cannot be installed in this haptic interface. So, the development of a haptic interface for a instrument with some degrees of freedom other than position and posture has been done in our group, we developed the haptic interface with a pair of actual micro-scissors shown in Fig. 3.

Haptic device

Fig. 3 The haptic interface with a pair of actual micro-scissors.

Present Research

　Currently, our group is researching the numerical modeling of cutting by a pair of micro-scissors and other operation than a brain spatula and micro-scissors, and is researching the development of a new haptic interface that can be able to detachable two or more surgical instruments for a series of surgical work simulation.

Reference

  1. Daisuke Sato, Ryosuke Kobayashi, Akira Kobayashi, Shohei Fujino and Masaru Uchiyama: Soft Tissue Pushing Operation Using a Haptic Interface for Simulation of Brain Tumor Resection, Journal of Robotics and Mechatronics, pp. 634-642, 2006.
  2. Shohei Fujino, Daisuke Sato, Koyu Abe, Atsushi Konno, and Masaru Uchiyama: Displaying Feeling of Cutting by a Micro-Scissors Type Haptic Device, 2008 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Pasadena, CA, USA, (2008/5/19-23), 2067-2072.

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