Visuohaptic bone saw simulator: combining vibrotactile and kinesthetic feedback

The combination of stereo visualization and haptics provides a natural interface for surgical training simulators, an application which is inherently both highly visual and highly tactile. However, most off-the-shelf kinesthetic haptic devices, such as the popular Phantom devices, are not well-suited to display high-fidelity vibrotactile feedback for the high frequency force components in surgical tools such as a reciprocating bone saw. In these haptic devices, forces are mediated from the actuators to the user through a mechanical linkage, in which inertia, friction, and backlash may distort the feedback. In addition, sustained display of vibrations may cause undue wear of the device. We propose a hybrid solution combining kinesthetic feedback from an off-the-shelf haptic device with high-fidelity vibration feedback from a vibrotactile actuator, and show that the hybrid is able to reproduce vibrations of an actual surgical reciprocating saw within the full perceptible frequency range.