Sensory Glove-Based Surgical Robot User Interface

TL;DR

This paper introduces a sensory glove-based interface for robotic surgery that enhances control and feedback, improving surgeon interaction with da Vinci surgical robots using intuitive gestures and tactile cues.

Contribution

The study presents a novel sensory glove system integrating modern VR hardware for surgical robot control, including unique features like instrument clutching and tactile feedback.

Findings

High tracking accuracy demonstrated

Efficient surgical task performance with minimal training

Enhanced user interaction through tactile feedback

Abstract

Robotic surgery has reached a high level of maturity and has become an integral part of standard surgical care. However, existing surgeon consoles are bulky, take up valuable space in the operating room, make surgical team coordination challenging, and their proprietary nature makes it difficult to take advantage of recent technological advances, especially in virtual and augmented reality. One potential area for further improvement is the integration of modern sensory gloves into robotic platforms, allowing surgeons to control robotic arms intuitively with their hand movements. We propose one such system that combines an HTC Vive tracker, a Manus Meta Prime 3 XR sensory glove, and SCOPEYE wireless smart glasses. The system controls one arm of a da Vinci surgical robot. In addition to moving the arm, the surgeon can use fingers to control the end-effector of the surgical instrument. Hand gestures are used to implement clutching and similar functions. In particular, we introduce clutching of the instrument orientation, a functionality unavailable in the da Vinci system. The vibrotactile elements of the glove are used to provide feedback to the user when gesture commands are invoked. A qualitative and quantitative evaluation has been conducted that compares the current device with the dVRK console. The system is shown to have excellent tracking accuracy, and the new interface allows surgeons to perform common surgical training tasks with minimal practice efficiently.