Preliminary study of a direction estimation method of a hard object to the grasped area by the grasping forceps for tumor position estimation in organs

Abstract

In order to estimate the position of the tumor in an organ, we propose a method to estimate the relative direction of the tumor with respect to the grasping position by the developed grasping forceps with sensors. The relative direction is calculated using the two directional shear forces obtained by sensors attached to the grasping forceps. In this paper, we confirmed the principle of the proposed method by targeting a tissue model consisting of silicone rubber (hard object) and gelatin. We observed the two directional shear forces toward the hard object when the grasping forceps grasped the model within 8 mm from the center of the hard object. This result indicates that the proposed method can be applicable to the relative direction estimation of tumors to the grasped position.