Sensory subtraction with cutaneous feedback to ensure safety in bimanual robot-assisted surgery

In this paper we present a novel approach to force feedback in robot-assisted surgery. Haptic stimuli, consisting of both kinesthetic and cutaneous components, are substituted with cutaneous feedback only. This new approach to sensory substitution in haptics is called sensory subtraction, since it can be thought as the subtraction between the complete haptic interaction and its kinesthetic component. In order to evaluate the feasibility of the proposed technique, we carried out a bimanual teleoperation experiment, wherein we compared the performance of our sensory subtraction approach with that of (1) complete haptic feedback, (2) visual feedback, and (3) auditory feedback. Results assess the proposed method as a viable solution to substitute haptic feedback in complex teleoperation scenarios. Moreover, as any other sensory substitution technique, this approach allows to overcome any stability issue affecting the haptic loop.