Viscoelastic Modeling of the Contact Interaction Between a Tactile Sensor and an Atrial Tissue

• Published in: IEEE transactions on biomedical engineering Vol. 59; no. 6; pp. 1727 - 1738
• Main Authors: Shen, Jing Jin, Kalantari, Masoud, Kovecses, József, Angeles, Jorge, Dargahi, Javad
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, NY IEEE 01.06.2012; Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
• Subjects: Algorithms; Atrial Function - physiology; Biological and medical sciences; Biosensing Techniques; Catheters; Computer Simulation; Computerized, statistical medical data processing and models in biomedicine; Elastic Modulus - physiology; Force; Force sensors; Hardness; Heart; Humans; Materials; Medical sciences; Models and simulation; Models, Cardiovascular; Parametric contact model; Physical Stimulation - instrumentation; Physical Stimulation - methods; Stress, Mechanical; Surface Properties; Surgery; Tactile sensors; tissue modelling; tool-tissue interaction; Touch - physiology; Transducers, Pressure; viscoelastic contact model; Viscosity; Parametric method; Viscoelasticity; viscoelastic contact model; tool-tissue interaction; tissue modelling; Tactile sensor; Models; Parametric contact model; Modeling; Biomedical engineering
• ISSN: 0018-9294; 1558-2531; 1558-2531
• DOI: 10.1109/TBME.2012.2193127

Modeling and parameter identification of soft tissue are essential in establishing an accurate contact model for tool-tissue interaction, which can be used in the development of high-fidelity surgical instruments. This paper discusses the interaction between a tissue and a tactile sensor in minimally invasive surgery, the focus being a novel technique for robotic-assisted mitral valve repair, in which tactile sensors are used to distinguish between different kinds of tissue by their relative softness. A discrete viscoelastic model is selected to represent the tissue behavior. To populate the model of the tissue with actual data, a set of tissue-testing experiments is designed and implemented on the atrial tissue of a swine heart by analyzing its dynamic response. By means of a genetic algorithm, data of the complex compliance are extracted and used to find the coefficients of the model. Further, a viscoelastic contact model is developed to model the interaction between the tissue and the tactile sensor with annular shape. Finally, the relation among the indentation displacement, the ratio of the radii, and the applied force is established parametrically.