Evaluation of a micro displacement generation mechanism with a built-in force sensor for measurement of the ossicular mobility and development of a method for micro force detection

Abstract

We have developed a measuring device to quantitatively detect the mobility of the ossicles in the middle ear. The quantitative assessment of the ossicular mobility is an important factor for determination of surgical strategy. The device provides information of the ossicular mobility to surgeons by applying the displacement to the ossicles and measuring the reaction force from them. Up to now, we have adopted a mechanism in which a force sensor is serially coupled with an actuator to measure the mobility of the ossicles. However, the mechanism is so large that it restricts the design of the measuring device. Therefore, we developed a new downsized mechanism by integrating the force sensor into the actuator. In this paper, we evaluated the characteristics of the new mechanism and developed a method to detect the micro force from the output of the integrated force sensor.