Low-cost simulation of robotic surgery

The high expenses associated with acquiring and maintaining robotic surgical equipment for minimally invasive surgery entail that training on this equipment is also expensive. Virtual reality (VR) training simulators can reduce this training time; however, the current simulators are also quite expensive. Therefore, we propose a low-cost simulation of minimally invasive surgery and evaluate its feasibility. Using off-the-shelf hardware and a commercial game engine, a prototype simulation was developed and evaluated against the use of a surgical robot. The participants of the evaluation were given a similar exercise to test with both the robot and the simulation. The usefulness of the simulation to prepare the participants for the surgical robot was rated "useful" by the participants, with an average of 3.1 on a scale of 1 to 5. The low-cost game controllers used in the prototype proved to effectively simulate the controls of the surgical robot. Another test was carried out to determine the benefits of various stereoscopic displays for this simulation. This test did not show significant improvements compared to a regular display but indicated that a mobile stereoscopic display might be the most suitable option for a low-cost simulation of robotic surgery.