IMPROVED PORTABLE INSTRUMENT TRACKING SYSTEM FOR SURGICAL TRAINING.

Surgeons in training have a limited opportunity to practice their skills in a realistic surgical environment. Surgical training models are expensive and are often single-use exercises involving consumable supplies. The goal of the work presented in this paper is to increase surgeon training time by developing a surgical training simulator that is portable, inexpensive, and offers a realistic surgical environment. To achieve this goal, the device must be easily assembled, compact, durable, resistant to loads experienced during transport, and can be integrated with virtual reality training modules. This device must also work with a variety of surgical instruments, since the surgeons will be supplying their own instruments for training. The simulation environment for this project is developed with the focus of simulating laparoscopic gallbladder surgery, with the potential of extending the simulation environment for other surgeries. This paper will outline the current state of the prototype and the design process for creating the prototype.