Microelectromechanical force and tactile sensors for minimally invasive surgery

Abstract

This chapter gives a brief introduction to the background of the minimally invasive surgery (MIS) along with the motivation of developing MEMS force sensors for guidewires and tactile sensors for tissue elasticity measurement in biomedical applications. The research objectives and technical requirements regarding the development of force and tactile sensors are addressed, followed by the overall structure of this dissertation. 1.1 Motivation MIS has been widely practiced in hospitals since the 1980s. Instead of making large incisions on patient to gain access to internal anatomy, MIS operates through small incisions with long surgical instruments and viewing equipment. Nowadays this technique has been widely adopted in various surgical procedures including laparoscopy for abdominal cavity, thorascoscopy for chest cavity, arthroscopy for joints, pelviscopy for pelvis, and angioscopy for blood vessels, because it has numerous advantages over the traditional open surgery, such as less access trauma, reduced postoperative pain, shorter hospital stays and faster recovery time, which are cost-effective for both hospitals and patients [1]. Despite these advantages, MIS introduces drawbacks for surgeons in performing operations through small incisions such as constrains on the manoeuvrability of the surgical tool, restriction of the visual feedback, and the impossibility of directly manipulating tissue. This latter shortcoming is one of the main limitations of MIS [2]. In traditional open surgery, sense of touch plays an important role. It enables the surgeons to interact with the organs or tissues and manipulate them freely, e.g. feel the tissue hardness, measure the tissue properties, and apply appropriate force control actions for safe tissue manipulation [3]. However, in the MIS, the surgeon's ability of 1.2 Research objectives As discussed above, the objective of the work reported in this dissertation is to develop MEMS-based miniaturized i) force and ii) tactile sensors that can be used for tissue palpation in minimally invasive surgery, measuring tool-tissue interaction forces at the tip of guidewire and measuring tissue elasticity. Both types of the sensors are developed based on MEMS technology.