Intelligent Haptic Virtual Simulation for Suture Surgery

The aim of this study is to develop an intelligent haptic virtual simulation for suture surgery, enabled with an AI assistant. This haptic VR suture simulation mainly composed of three parts: visuo-haptic rendering for surgery, replica training for surgery, and AI assistant for surgery. In the simulation, a trainee surgeon can practice the suturing procedure using tactile touches in the stereoscopic 3D virtual environment. The simulation adopts a “precise haptic collision detection method using subdivision surface and sphere clustering” developed in the previous studies of authors. In addition, an expert surgeon's suture operations can be replicated to the medical trainee's simulation to experience it as it is. This method has the advantage of reproducing the experience of the expert’s ideal movements of surgical procedures. The data recording of the skilled surgeon's motions and operations are normalized into a form suitable for AI learning. The AI assistant distinguishes five typical types of suture surgery methods and learns the proper methods for various wounds using deep learning techniques, then it suggests the most appropriate suture method. The suture simulation can reduce the cost and time required for surgical training and eventually provide safe and accurate physical surgery.