Soft Optical Sensor and Haptic Feedback System for Remote and Robot-Assisted Palpation

Robotic palpation shows significant potential to improve the accuracy and speed of tumor identification. However, robotic palpation mechanisms often lack haptic feedback, making it difficult for the surgeon to identify variations in tissue stiffness. This paper presents a soft optical sensor integrated with a wearable haptic glove for tumor detection during robotic palpation. The sensor contains an array of optical waveguides that can detect the presence of tumors embedded within a tissue phantom. Detection of a tumor results in an optical loss from the waveguide signal, triggering proportional inflation of the soft microfluidic actuators in the glove. The glove consists of four modular actuators placed at the fingertips, each corresponding to a sensing location on the waveguide array. The inflation of each actuator is proportional to the incident loss on the palpation sensor array, which is dependent on tumor depth. Thus, the glove is capable of alerting the user to the location of tumors during remote palpation.