Compensation of Environmental Influences on Sensorized-Forceps for Practical Surgical Tasks

For more secure and delicate robotic surgery, force sensing ability is essential but it has still not been used in actual robot surgery. This is because the environmental factors that occur during actual operation affect the sensor and the sensor cannot give reliable force information. In this letter, we aim to develop reliable sensorized-forceps that can be used in practical surgical tasks by compensating environmental influences. The environmental factors affecting the sensor were analyzed. Humidity, temperature, and high voltage were considered as main factors. At first, to compensate the humidity influences, the humidity sensing capability was integrated in the sensorized-forceps and humidity compensation algorithm is applied. Second, to eliminate the temperaturesensitive element, ac shield is applied to the signal processing board. Finally, for cutting off electric conduction, entire surface of forceps is covered by an oxide layer. To verify the proposed solutions, revised sensorized-forceps are installed in surgical robot platform and ex vivo experiments with electro-cautery task were conducted.