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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Robot. AI
Sec. Biomedical Robotics
Volume 11 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/frobt.2024.1489884
This article is part of the Research Topic Latest Trends in Bio-Inspired Medical Robotics: Structural Design, Manufacturing, Sensing, Actuation and Control View all 7 articles

Abraded Optical Fibre-based Dynamic Range Force Sensor for Tissue Palpation

Provisionally accepted
Abu Bakar Dawood Abu Bakar Dawood 1*Vamsi K. Chavali Vamsi K. Chavali 1Thomas Mack Thomas Mack 1Zhenyu Zhang Zhenyu Zhang 2Hareesh Godaba Hareesh Godaba 3Martin Angelmahr Martin Angelmahr 2Kaspar Althoefer Kaspar Althoefer 1
  • 1 Queen Mary University of London, London, United Kingdom
  • 2 Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications, Heinrich-Hertz-Institut, HHI, Goslar, Germany
  • 3 University of Sussex, Brighton, West Sussex, United Kingdom

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Tactile information acquired through palpation plays a crucial role in relation to surface characterisation and tissue differentiation -an essential clinical requirement during surgery.In the case of Minimally Invasive Surgery, access is restricted, and tactile feedback available to surgeons is therefore reduced. This paper presents a novel stiffness controllable, dynamic force range sensor that can provide remote haptic feedback. The sensor has an abraded optical fibre integrated into a silicone dome. Forces applied to the dome change the curvature of the optical fibres, resulting in light attenuation. By changing the pressure within the dome and thereby adjusting the sensor's stiffness, we are able to modify the force measurement range. Results from our experimental study demonstrate that increasing the pressure inside the dome increases the force range whilst decreasing force sensitivity. We show that the maximum force measured by our sensor prototype at 20mm/min was 5.02 N, 6.70 N and 8.83 N for the applied pressures of 0 psi (0 kPa), 0.5 psi (3.45 kPa) and 1 psi (6.9 kPa), respectively. The sensor has also been tested to estimate the stiffness of 13 phantoms of different elastic moduli. Results show the elastic modulus sensing range of the proposed sensor to be from 8.58 to 165.32 kPa.

    Keywords: Soft force sensor, Dynamic range force sensor, Optical sensing, Fibre optic sensor, tissue palpation, minimally invasive surgery

    Received: 02 Sep 2024; Accepted: 28 Oct 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Dawood, Chavali, Mack, Zhang, Godaba, Angelmahr and Althoefer. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Abu Bakar Dawood, Queen Mary University of London, London, United Kingdom

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.