Elicitation of trustworthiness requirements for highly dexterous teleoperation systems with signal latency.

Introduction: Teleoperated robotic manipulators allow us to bring human dexterity and cognition to hard-to-reach places on Earth and in space. In long-distance teleoperation, however, the limits of the speed of light results in an unavoidable and perceivable signal delay. The resultant disconnect between command, action, and feedback means that systems often behave unexpectedly, reducing operators' trust in their systems.

Acceptability of Automated Robotic Clinical Breast Examination: Survey Study.

Background: In the United Kingdom, women aged 50 to 70 years are invited to undergo mammography. However, 10% of invasive breast cancers occur in women aged ≤45 years, representing an unmet need for young women. Identifying a suitable screening modality for this population is challenging; mammography is insufficiently sensitive, whereas alternative diagnostic methods are invasive or costly.

ESPRESS.0: Eustachian Tube-Inspired Tactile Sensor Exploiting Pneumatics for Range Extension and SenSitivity Tuning.

Optimising the sensitivity of a tactile sensor to a specific range of stimuli magnitude usually compromises the sensor's widespread usage. This paper presents a novel soft tactile sensor capable of dynamically tuning its stiffness for enhanced sensitivity across a range of applied forces, taking inspiration from the Eustachian tube in the mammalian ear. The sensor exploits an adjustable pneumatic back pressure to control the effective stiffness of its 20 mm diameter elastomer interface.

Optical-Tactile Sensor for Lump Detection Using Pneumatic Control.

Soft tactile sensors are an attractive solution when robotic systems must interact with delicate objects in unstructured and obscured environments, such as most medical robotics applications. The soft nature of such a system increases both comfort and safety, while the addition of simultaneous soft active actuation provides additional features and can also improve the sensing range. This paper presents the development of a compact soft tactile sensor which is able to measure the profile of objects and, through an integrated pneumatic system, actuate and change the effective stiffness of its tactile contact surface.

Estimation of Tool-Tissue Forces in Robot-Assisted Minimally Invasive Surgery Using Neural Networks.

A new algorithm is proposed to estimate the tool-tissue force interaction in robot-assisted minimally invasive surgery which does not require the use of external force sensing. The proposed method utilizes the current of the motors of the surgical instrument and neural network methods to estimate the force interaction. Offline and online testing is conducted to assess the feasibility of the developed algorithm.

Design of a Wearable Fingertip Haptic Device for Remote Palpation: Characterisation and Interface with a Virtual Environment.

This paper presents the development of a wearable Fingertip Haptic Device (FHD) that can provide cutaneous feedback via a Variable Compliance Platform (VCP). The FHD includes an inertial measurement unit, which tracks the motion of the user's finger while its haptic functionality relies on two parameters: pressure in the VCP and its linear displacement towards the fingertip. The combination of these two features results in various conditions of the FHD, which emulate the remote object or surface stiffness properties.

An anthropomorphic design for a minimally invasive surgical system based on a survey of surgical technologies, techniques and training.

Background: Over the past century, abdominal surgery has seen a rapid transition from open procedures to less invasive methods, such as robot-assisted minimally invasive surgery (MIS). This study aimed to investigate and discuss the needs of MIS in terms of instrumentation and to inform the design of a novel instrument.

Methods: A survey was conducted among surgeons regarding their opinions on surgical training, surgical systems, how satisfied they were with them and how easy they were to use.