TACTILE OPTICAL SENSOR FOR USE IN MINIMAL LY INVASIVE SURGERY

In minimally invasive surgery high sensory palpation of the organs in the interior of the body is largely lost. It is the purpose of this wo rk to recover tactile sensing for the surgeon. To achieve this goal, a new tactile optical pressure sensor was developed which allows 64 mea suring points to be made on a 1-cm(2) surface area. The sensor was con ceived for application in laparoscopic grasping forceps and has an out side diameter of 15 mm. The optical sensor enables to display indurati on spreads of different tissues on a PC-Monitor. Furthermore, the meas ured values serve to activate a vibrotactile display unit for tactile feedback of the measured pressures onto the fingertip of the operator. In order to obtain information regarding requirements for an analogue pin-positioning mechanism for signal display, an actuator array was i mplemented with 144 pins on a 4-cm(2) surface area. The array allows v arious test objects to be recognised in a true scale representation by exploratory movements of the fingers.