Haptics in Surgical Robots

Abstract This chapter addresses the use of haptics in robots for soft-tissue surgery, aiming to bring a cohesive consideration of the clinical context, underlying technologies, and state-of-the-art applications in this field. The fundamentals of haptics are first introduced, using the human sensory system as an example which serves as a benchmark for technological advances. The chapter then provides a description of the clinical context, describing surgical areas and procedures of particular relevance to robotics before introducing key clinical challenges that have the potential to be addressed by the introduction of haptic technology. The basic building blocks of haptics, sensing and feedback systems are then introduced to provide an understanding of the fundamentals together with an overview of state-of-the-art in each area. From this foundation, a review of haptics applied to surgical robots is presented, highlighting key commercial systems together with research advances. The chapter concludes with a discussion of current trends in this field and considers the technological and clinical challenges which remain.