Tissue compliance determination using a da Vinci instrument

Abstract

In this paper, based on the apparent stiffness analysis of a dual tendon-sheath system, we propose a method for using a surgical instrument of the da Vinci surgical robotic system (from Intuitive Surgical Inc.) for estimation of mechanical properties of tissues. The performance of the method is experimentally evaluated by comparing tissues with different stiffnesses and by localizing tumors in an artificial tissue sample.