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Statement of problem The accuracy of single implant placement is critical, as errors may cause problems with vital structures intraoperatively, as well as postoperatively with the prostheses. These issues may be exacerbated in complete-arch edentulous treatments requiring relative accuracy among multiple implants, particularly with prefabricated prosthetic structures. Purpose The purpose of this clinical study was to determine the accuracy of dental implant placement by using haptic robotic guidance in completely edentulous participants. Material and methods In a prospective single-arm clinical study, 5 qualified participants elected to receive dental implants placed by using haptic robotic guidance to restore either the maxillary or mandibular arch, or both, with complete-arch implant-supported prostheses. Three dual-arch participants and 2 single-arch participants resulted in 38 endosteal dental implants being placed. A virtual preoperative restorative and surgical plan was created before surgery. This plan was matched to the surgical workspace on the day of surgery by using a bone-mounted fiducial splint fabricated from a cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) scan. Intraoperatively, the surgeons maneuvered a handpiece attached to the robotic guidance arm, osteotomies were created with a haptically constrained handpiece, and the implants were placed with 3-dimensional haptic constraints as per the virtual plan. Postoperative CBCT scans allowed the evaluation of the deviations of the actual implant placement relative to the plan. Results Twenty-three implants were placed in the mandible and 15 in the maxilla. The mean ±standard deviation global angular deviation was 2.56 ±1.48 degrees, while the crown of the placed implant showed a deviation from the plan of 1.04 ±0.70 mm and the apex of 0.95 ±0.73 mm. The signed depth deviation was 0.42 ±0.46 mm proud. No adverse events were reported. Conclusions This clinical series for treating completely edentulous patients by using haptic robotic guidance was found to be safe and accurate. While further longer-term clinical studies are necessary to measure outcomes and to assess differences as compared with nonrobotic implementations, haptic robotic preparation appears to confer additional intraoperative advantages over other techniques for treating completely edentulous arches.

This article presents a versatile soft robotic gripper system whereby its fingers can be reconfigured into different poses such as scoop, pinch, and claw. This allows the gripper to efficiently and safely handle food samples of different shapes, sizes and stiffness such as uncooked tofu and broccoli floret. The 3D-printed fingers were tested to last up to 25 000 cycles without significant changes in the curvature profile and force output profile. A benchmark experiment was conducted to evaluate the performance of the gripper and state-of-the-art gripping solutions. Capability of versatile soft gripper was optimized by integrating vision and tactile sensing facilities. An object recognition system was developed to identify food samples such as potato, broccoli, and sausage. Position and orientation of food samples were identified and pick-and-place pathway was optimized to achieve the best gripping performance. Flexible tactile sensors were integrated into soft fingers and closed-loop force feedback control system was developed. This allowed the gripper to automatically explore and select the most stable grip pose for different food samples. Integration of vision and force feedback system ensure that objects detected by the system would be firmly gripped. The reconfigurable soft robotic gripper system has been demonstrated to perform high-speed pick-and-place tasks (∼3 s per item) with object recognition system, making it a potential solution to food and grocery supply chain needs.

A 55-year-old patient presented with exposure of both the haptics beyond the conjunctiva of the scleral fixated multipiece intraocular lens (IOL). Two diagonally opposite scleral pockets were created, and the exposed haptics was redirected and repositioned aseptically into these pockets to facilitate intrascleral fixation. Herein, we report a simple rescue method for management of exposed haptic after Yamane technique of scleral fixated IOL.

Advancements in user interface technologies and demands of design engineering led to increasing implementation of large and mostly flat interactive surfaces in automotive. Recent discussions in the context of in-vehicle usage of touchscreens advocate for the use of haptic feedback to restore the explore- and feel-qualities typically experienced in traditional physical button interfaces that contribute to intuitive, eyes-free, and tactually rich interactions. Haptic technologies that include a friction modulation approach seem especially promising to convey a high-quality feeling. This research reports an experience-oriented evaluation of an electrostatic friction haptic display in an in-vehicle direct touch interaction context. The evaluation was based on an automotive multitask setting (primary driving-task and secondary target-selection-task) with a 2 × 2 feedback modality design (factors haptic/audio with levels absent/present). The objective variables (response time, errors, and performance on the primary task) did not differ between feedback modalities. Any additional feedback to a visual baseline enhanced the user experience, with the multimodal feedback being preferred by most participants. Surface haptics was perceived as a novel yet unexpected type of haptic feedback. We discuss the implications for the haptic design of programmable friction displays and provide an initial set of guidelines for this innovative technology.

While various biomimetic robotic haptic sensors are often utilized to measure multifarious physical interactions to identify material properties under human exploratory procedures (EPs), traditional methods are unable to fuse well multimodal measurements under EPs. In order to solve this problem, an innovative hybrid joint group kernel sparse coding model (HJGKSC) for material recognition under EPs is proposed. First, a series of feature representations according to the characteristics of different measures are introduced. Second, we propose an innovative hybrid fusion framework based on statistical learning with kernel sparsity to effectively fuse the measurements from robotic EPs. Third, a matched optimization algorithm is constructed to deal with the innate optimization problem in the proposed framework. Finally, we develop an experiment based on three different classification levels (coarse, medium, fine) with the public dataset containing 184 material classes to verify the proposed method and compare with some other similar kernel methods. Experimental results show that the accuracy of coarse, medium and fine classification of the proposed hybrid fusion framework is 98.4%, 96.2% and 98.4%, respectively. The framework can be extended easily to other fusion tasks with multiple measurements.

The tactile Internet is the next step after the Internet of Things (IoT). It enables the steering and control of virtual and real objects through the Internet and requires a very low round trip latency. This article is devoted to a case study on the deployment of a tactile Internet application in a hybrid cloud, edge, and mobile ad hoc cloud environment. We deploy a remote phobia-treatment application as a set of components. Remote phobia treatment allows phobia patients to have therapy sessions under the guidance of an expert therapist located remotely, with patients and therapist sharing the same virtual reality (VR) environment. A three-layer architecture (cloud, edge, and mobile ad hoc cloud) is proposed for the deployment. A prototype is built with Microsoft Azure at the cloud layer, laptops at the edge layer, and smartphones at the mobile ad hoc cloud layer. End-users are equipped with an HTC VIVE headset for VR rendering and Gloveone gloves for haptic sensations rendering. Extensive performance measurements are made by varying the component deployment patterns as well as the distance between the therapist and patient. Our results demonstrate clearly that the addition of mobile ad hoc cloud to the edge and cloud does bring added value in terms of latency reduction when deploying tactile Internet applications.

Retail is rapidly evolving to construct virtual environments for consumers. Online product images, videos, and virtual reality (VR) interfaces enliven consumer experiences and are a source of product information. Because consumers are unable to physically touch products in these digital environments, this research examines vicarious touch, or the observation of a hand in physical contact with a product in a digital environment. Across eight studies, the authors use images, GIFs, and VR to show that vicarious touch affects consumers’ psychological ownership and product valuation due to the active nature of product touch, which results in a felt sense of body ownership of the virtual hand. This is termed the “vicarious haptic effect.” Results demonstrate that it is not enough to show a hand in an advertisement; the hand must be touching a product. The vicarious haptic effect is strongest for people who become highly stimulated by an immersive VR experience (i.e., measured via the elevation in heart rate). The vicarious haptic effect is attenuated if the viewed interaction does not represent a diagnostic hand movement. The authors discuss theoretical and managerial implications for digital product presentation to encourage feelings of product ownership and valuation.

With the rapid development of vehicle information systems, liquid crystal displays (LCDs) have been widely used to enhance information experience. A linear vibration motor is usually placed behind the LCD to provide sufficient haptic feedback. A linear vibration motor with a large permanent magnet causes massive flux leakage around the display. As a result, it may cause unpredictable harm to people with implanted medical devices. Therefore, in this paper, a novel magnetic circuit design of a slim-width type linear vibration motor is introduced to reduce the static magnetic flux leakage. The haptic performance of the slim-width type linear vibration motor was analyzed using the electromagnetic-mechanical coupling method. Three types of experimental results were obtained to verify the analysis results. In conclusion, compared to the prototype motor, the slim-width type linear vibration motor proposed in this paper exhibits significant flux leakage reduction of 94.01% and 96.34% at the measuring positions. Furthermore, the slim-width type linear vibration motor exhibits an acceleration similar to that of the prototype motor.

The programming of manipulators is a common task in robotics, for which numerous solutions exist. In this work, a new programming method related to the common master-slave approach is introduced, in which the master is replaced by a digital twin created through haptic and visual rendering. To achieve this, we present an algorithm that enables the haptic rendering of any programmed robot with a serial manipulator on a general-purpose haptic interface. The results show that the proposed haptic rendering reproduces the kinematic properties of the programmed robot and directly provides the desired joint space trajectories. In addition to a stand-alone usage, we demonstrate that the proposed algorithm can be easily paired with existing visual technology for virtual and augmented reality to facilitate a highly immersive programming experience.

This study investigates the ability to remember a sequence of stimuli in two basic conditions: haptic and visual. Participants rely on a combination of modal and/or spatial information to perform a memory task. For this purpose, an experimental setup was developed based on the "Simon Says" memory game. Individuals receive a series of sensory stimuli and need to remember the sequence and repeat it. The stimuli in visual conditions are colored or white lights, and the stimuli in haptic conditions are vibration, hot, cold, and skin stretch. Results demonstrate that participants retained longer sequences in spatial conditions compared to the modal conditions. It is also demonstrated that participants performed better in visual conditions compared to haptic conditions. Participants were able to retain more complex spatial patterns and remember them faster in visual conditions compared to haptic conditions. A spatial difficulty ranking system was developed, indicating how easily each spatial pattern can be retained visually and haptically.

Purpose To determine the impact of IOL with 7.0 mm optic and plate haptic design on incidence of dysphotopsiae and visual functions after cataract surgery. Setting Day-care clinic. Design A prospective monocentric randomized patient-blinded comparative clinical study. Methods Following preoperative measurements, patients underwent cataract surgery with implantation of two IOL designs - with 7.0 mm optic and plate haptics (group 1) or with 6.0 mm optic and C-loop haptics (group 2). In month 1, 3 and 12 follow-ups patients were examined, answered a questionnaire regarding satisfaction, spectacle dependence, frequency and extent of positive and negative dysphotopsiae, and underwent contrast sensitivity, mesopic vision and glare sensitivity testing. The data were analyzed as nominal, ordinal and metric with Chi-Square, Mann-Whitney-U, Wilcoxon and t-tests. Results Group 1 comprised 57 eyes (43 patients) and group 2 comprised 63 eyes (43 patients). Corrected distance visual acuity was the same between groups throughout the study. Group 1 showed significantly lower incidence of positive and negative dysphotopsiae in month 1 follow-up (p=0.021 and 0.015, respectively) and a higher satisfaction rate in month 3 follow-up (p=0.006). Mean contrast sensitivity and mesopic vision with and without glare were the same in both groups. Positive dysphotopsiae cases in month 12 follow-up revealed lower photopic contrast sensitivity (p=0.005, 0.036 and 0.047, respectively), longer AL and greater preoperative pupil dynamics (p=0.04 and 0.06). Conclusions The IOL design with 7.0 mm optic diameter and plate haptics reduces dysphotopsiae, provides good visual acuity, contrast sensitivity, mesopic vision with and without glare and high patient satisfaction.

This paper presents a set of adaptive reset techniques for use with haptic retargeting systems focusing on interaction with hybrid virtual reality interfaces that align with a physical interface. Haptic retargeting between changing physical and virtual targets requires a reset where the physical and virtual hand positions are re-aligned. We present a modified Point technique to guide the user in the direction of their next interaction such that the remaining distance to the target is minimized upon completion of the reset. This, along with techniques drawn from existing work are further modified to consider the angular and translational gain of each redirection and identify the optimal position for the reset to take place. When the angular and translational gain is within an acceptable range, the reset can be entirely omitted. This enables continuous retargeting between targets removing interruptions from a sequence of retargeted interactions. These techniques were evaluated in a user study which showed that adaptive reset techniques can provide a significant decrease in task completion time, travel distance, and the number of user errors Refereed/Peer-reviewed

Minimally invasive techniques have been at the forefront of surgical progress, and the evolution of endovascular robotic technologies has seen a paradigm shift in the focus of future innovation. Endovascular robotic technology may help overcome many of the challenges associated with traditional endovascular techniques by enabling greater control, stability, and precision of target navigation and treatment, while simultaneously reducing operator learning curves and improving safety. Several robotic systems have been developed to perform a broad range of endovascular procedures, but none have been used at scale or widely in routine practice, and the evidence for their safety, effectiveness, and efficiency remains limited. High cost and device complexity, lack of haptic feedback, and limited integration and interoperability with existing equipment and devices are the principal technology, cost, and sustainability barriers to the scalability and widespread adoption in day-to-day practice. In order to fully realize its potential, future robotic innovation must ensure compatibility with a range of off-the-shelf equipment that can be tracked and exchanged quickly during a procedure and come together with developments in navigation, tracking, and imaging. Reducing cost and complexity and supporting sustainability of the technology is key. In parallel, new technologies must be evaluated by clear and transparent standardized outcomes and be accompanied by robust clinical training. Key to the successful future development and dissemination of robotic technology is open collaboration among industry, clinicians, and patients in order to fully understand and address current challenges and enable the technology to realize its full potential.

We describe a simplified intra-sclera fixation technique involving implantation of the Carlevale IOL in the posterior chamber that lodges the T-shaped IOL haptics in the scleral wall, not requiring scleral flaps. This surgical modification reduces operative time, limits iatrogenic damage to the sclera and avoids friction between haptics and conjunctiva, which may cause conjunctival erosion and infection in the long term. Thirteen patients with crystalline lens or IOL dislocation/subluxation underwent surgery involving implantation of the Carlevale IOL in the posterior chamber. Mean best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) before surgery was 0.75 ± 0.5 logMAR (range: 0.2 - 1.5 logMAR) and improved to 0.28 ± 0.3 logMAR (range: 0 - 1.0 logMAR) after surgery. Complications rarely occurred and were not sight threatening. The sutureless scleral fixation of the Carlevale IOL utilizing the modified surgical technique may represent a safe and effective procedure to restore visual function in patients with damaged zonular-capsular support.

Haptic guidance in a shared steering assistance system has drawn significant attention in intelligent vehicle fields, owing to its mutual communication ability for vehicle control. By exerting continuous torque on the steering wheel, both the driver and support system can share lateral control of the vehicle. However, current haptic guidance steering systems demonstrate some deficiencies in assisting lane changing. This study explored a new steering interaction method, including the design and evaluation of an intention-based haptic shared steering system. Such an intention-based method can support both lane keeping and lane changing assistance, by detecting a driver's lane change intention. By using a deep learning-based method to model a driver's decision timing regarding lane crossing, an adaptive gain control method was proposed for realizing a steering control system. An intention consistency method was proposed to detect whether the driver and the system were acting towards the same target trajectories and to accurately capture the driver's intention. A driving simulator experiment was conducted to test the system performance. Participants were required to perform six trials with assistive methods and one trial without assistance. The results demonstrated that the supporting system decreased the lane departure risk in the lane keeping tasks and could support a fast and stable lane changing maneuver.

To ensure smooth and precise operations during soft robot-assisted surgery, the force feedback of the robot is very important. Although some tactile sensors have been developed and used in surgery, there are limitations that make completing basic sterilization procedures difficult, such as the need for a complex structure or additional hardware. To address these problems, we propose a vision-based tactile sensor in this paper. The hardware structure is built on an endoscope system, without requiring any complex and experiment hardware, complex wiring, or mechanical interaction between the sensing system and tissues. The probe is made of highly biocompatible NiTi wire with polydopamine (PDA) coating and polymer-based markers. The proposed visual tactile sensor functions by extracting tactile information from images through a designed algorithm. The critical parameters of the core algorithms used for the sensor are discussed. The performance results demonstrate that the sensor can successfully record the interaction force, and its measuring range can be regulated by infrared irradiation. The sensor can potentially be used in robotic endoscopy to provide force feedback for soft robotic systems used in surgery, diagnosis, and drug delivery.

Remote robotic surgery, one of the most interesting 5G-enabled Tactile Internet applications, requires an ultra-low latency of 1 ms and high reliability of 99.999%. Communication disruptions such as packet loss and delay in remote robotic surgery can prevent messages between the surgeon and patient from arriving within the required deadline. In this paper, we advocate for scalable Gaussian process regression (GPR) to predict the contents of delayed and/or lost messages. Specifically, two kernel versions of the sequential randomized low-rank and sparse matrix factorization method (l1-SRLSMF and SRLSMF) are proposed to scale GPR and address the issue of delayed and/or lost data in the training dataset. Given that the standard eigen decomposition for online GPR covariance update is cost-prohibitive, we employ incremental eigen decomposition in l1-SRLSMF and SRLSMF GPR methods. Simulations were conducted to evaluate the performance of our proposed l1-SRLSMF and SRLSMF GPR methods to compensate for the detrimental impacts of excessive delay and packet loss associated with 5G-enabled Tactile Internet remote robotic surgery. The results demonstrate that our proposed framework can outperform state-of-the-art approaches in terms of haptic data generalization performance. Finally, we assess the proposed framework’s ability to meet the Tactile Internet requirement for remote robotic surgery and discuss future research directions.

Robotics has become an essential part of the surgical armamentarium for a growing number of surgeons around the world. New companies seek to compete with established robotic systems that have dominated the market to date. Evolving robotic surgery platforms have introduced technologic and design advancements to optimize ergonomics, improve visualization, provide haptic feedback, and make systems smaller and cheaper. With the introduction of any new technology in the operating room, it is imperative that safeguards be in place to ensure its appropriate use. Current processes for granting of hospital robotic surgery privileges are inadequate and must be strengthened and standardized.

Excessive tissue–instrument interaction forces during robotic surgery have the potential for causing iatrogenic tissue damages. The current in vivo study seeks to assess whether tactile feedback could reduce intraoperative tissue–instrument interaction forces during robotic-assisted total mesorectal excision. Five subjects, including three experts and two novices, used the da Vinci robot to perform total mesorectum excision in four pigs. The grip force in the left arm, used for retraction, and the pushing force in the right arm, used for blunt pelvic dissection around the rectum, were recorded. Tissue–instrument interaction forces were compared between trials done with and without tactile feedback. The mean force exerted on the tissue was consistently higher in the retracting arm than the dissecting arm (3.72 ± 1.19 vs 0.32 ± 0.36 N, p

Eyes-free operation of mobile devices is critical in situations where the visual channel is either unavailable or attention is needed elsewhere. In such situations, vibrotactile tracing along paths or lines can help users to navigate and identify symbols and shapes without visual information. In this paper, we investigated the applicability of different metrics that can measure the effectiveness of vibrotactile line tracing methods on touch screens. In two user studies, we compare trace Length Error, Area Error, and Fréchet Distance as alternatives to commonly used trace Time. Our results show that a lower Fréchet distance is correlated better with the comprehension of a line trace. Furthermore, we show that distinct feedback methods perform differently with varying geometric features in lines and propose a segmented line design for tactile line tracing studies. We believe the results will inform future designs of eyes-free operation techniques and studies.

Tangible controls-especially sliders and rotary knobs-have been explored in a wide range of interactive applications for desktop and immersive environments. Studies have shown that they support greater precision and provide proprioceptive benefits, such as support for eyes-free interaction. However, such controls tend to be expressly designed for specific applications. We draw inspiration from a bespoke controller for immersive data visualisation, but decompose this design into a simple, wireless, composable unit featuring two actuated sliders and a rotary encoder. Through these controller units, we explore the interaction opportunities around actuated sliders; supporting precise selection, infinite scrolling, adaptive data representations, and rich haptic feedback; all within a mode-less interaction space. We demonstrate the controllers' use for simple, ad hoc desktop interaction,before moving on to more complex, multi-dimensional interactions in VR and AR. We show that the flexibility and composability of these actuated controllers provides an emergent design space which covers the range of interactive dynamics for visual analysis. In a user study involving pairs performing collaborative visual analysis tasks in mixed-reality, our participants were able to easily compose rich visualisations, make insights and discuss their findings.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: While limited to case reports or small case series, emerging evidence advocates the inclusion of smartphone-interfacing mobile platforms and wearable technologies, consisting of internet-powered mobile and wearable devices that interface with smartphones, in the orthopaedic surgery practice. The purpose of this review is to investigate the relevance and impact of this technology in orthopaedic surgery. RECENT FINDINGS: Smartphone-interfacing mobile platforms and wearable technologies are capable of improving the patients’ quality of life as well as the extent of their therapeutic engagement, while promoting the orthopaedic surgeons’ abilities and level of care. Offered advantages include improvements in diagnosis and examination, preoperative templating and planning, and intraoperative assistance, as well as postoperative monitoring and rehabilitation. Supplemental surgical exposure, through haptic feedback and realism of audio and video, may add another perspective to these innovations by simulating the operative environment and potentially adding a virtual tactile feature to the operator’s visual experience. SUMMARY: Although encouraging in the field of orthopaedic surgery, surgeons should be cautious when using smartphone-interfacing mobile platforms and wearable technologies, given the lack of a current academic governing board certification and clinical practice validation processes.

In recent years, medical simulators have been widely applied to a broad range of surgery training tasks. However, most of the existing surgery simulators can only provide limited immersive environments with a few pre-processed organ models, while ignoring the instant modeling of various personalized clinical cases, which brings substantive differences between training experiences and real surgery situations. To this end, we present a virtual reality (VR) based surgery simulation system for personalized percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). The simulation system can directly take patient-specific clinical data as input and generate virtual 3D intervention scenarios. Specially, we introduce a fiber-based patient-specific cardiac dynamic model to simulate the nonlinear deformation among the multiple layers of the cardiac structure, which can well respect and correlate the atriums, ventricles and vessels, and thus gives rise to more effective visualization and interaction. Meanwhile, we design a tracking and haptic feedback hardware, which can enable users to manipulate physical intervention instruments and interact with virtual scenarios. We conduct quantitative analysis on deformation precision and modeling efficiency, and evaluate the simulation system based on the user studies from 16 cardiologists and 20 intervention trainees, comparing it to traditional desktop intervention simulators. The results confirm that our simulation system can provide a better user experience, and is a suitable platform for PCI surgery training and rehearsal.

This study is aimed at evaluating the impact of different technical solutions of a virtual reality simulator to support the assessment of advanced human–machine interfaces for hydraulic excavator based on a new coordinated control paradigm and haptic feedbacks. By mimicking the end-effector movements, the control is conceived to speed up the learning process for novice operators and to reduce the mental overload on those already trained. The design of the device can fail if ergonomics, usability and performance are not grounded on realistic simulations where the combination of visual, auditory and haptic feedbacks make the users feel like being in a real environment rather than a computer-generated one. For this reason, a testing campaign involving 10 subjects was designed to discriminate the optimal set-up for the hardware to ensure a higher immersion into the VR experience. Both the audio–video configurations of the simulator (head-mounted display and surround system vs. monitor and embedded speakers) and the two types of haptic feedback for the soil–bucket interaction (contact vs. shaker) are compared in three different scenarios. The performance of both the users and simulator are evaluated by processing subjective and objective data. The results show how the immersive set-up improves the users’ efficiency and ergonomics without putting any extra mental or physical effort on them, while the preferred haptic feedback (contact) is not the more efficient one (shaker).

Objetivando el desarrollo tecnológico como soporte al estudio técnico-individual de dirección para alumnos con discapacidad visual, en este abordaje, es expuesta a secuencia de pruebas y sus resultados, para la recolecta de los requisitos necesarios a la constitución y programación del prototipo Maestro v0.1 — os feedbacks háptico y auditivo. Por lo tanto, considerándolos como elementos primordiales para provocar la acción correctiva del gesto técnico de la dirección al alumno. O procedimiento metodológico utilizado, tiene por basis el desarrollo tecnológico centrado en el usuario, fundamentado a la luz del Human-Computer-Interaction. Para realizar las pruebas de usabilidad, 25 alumnos deficientes visuales participaron de la EMUFRN, que interactuaron con los estímulos de los feedbacks, e imprimieron sus reacciones en cuestionarios. Por fin, este artículo enseña mediante una articulación teórica y práctica, la arquitectura basal de un prototipo, que podrá propiciar la práctica técnica individual de la dirección para alumnos con discapacidad visual.

Three-dimensional (3D) printing, also called rapid prototyping or additive manufacturing, transforms digital images into 3D printed objects, typically by layering consecutive thin films of material. This technology has become increasingly accessible to the public, prompting applications in veterinary surgery. Three-dimensional prints provide direct visualization of complex 3D structures and also haptic feedback relevant to surgery. The main objective of this review is to report current applications of 3D printing in small-animal surgery, including surgical education, preoperative planning, and treatment of tissue defects. The reported uses of 3D prints, their proposed advantages, and current limitations are discussed considering published evidence. Aspects of the manufacturing process specific to each application are described, along with current practices in veterinary surgery.

Up to this day, precise manipulation still relies on human hands, which benefits from the rich neural sensing in the fingertips. For robotic hands, force perception, recognizing the softness of objects, and detecting slip can significantly improve the grasping and manipulating abilities. However, it is quite challenging to embed sensors into the compact fingertip. Here, we propose a soft sensor to perceive external forces through the output change of a pressure transducer. The soft sensor also acts as fingertip with its physical airbag. The pressure transducer inside sensor detects the contacting force. In the experiments, two fingers grasped an object at three different speeds. The feedback data were input to a random forest algorithm to perceive the softness of the contacting surface and identify the object. The accuracy was experimentally proved to be greater than 90% and have good robustness. A prototype of a robot hand employing the proposed soft fingertips was developed, which experimentally demonstrated the grasping and resistant ability to external perturbations. The robot hand manipulated a square object to track a preset trajectory using two fingers and a classical PID controller, which significantly depends on the embedded soft sensor with its force feedback, flexibility, adaptability.

Background Liver resection involves surgical removal of a portion of the liver. It is used to treat liver tumors and liver injuries. The complexity and high-risk nature of this surgery prevents novice doctors from practicing it on real patients. Virtual surgery simulation was developed to simulate surgical procedures to enable medical professionals to be trained without requiring a patient, a cadaver, or an animal. Therefore, there is a strong need for the development of a liver resection surgery simulation system. We propose a real-time simulation system that provides realistic visual and tactile feedback for hepatic parenchymal transection. Methods The tetrahedron structure and cluster-based shape matching are used for physical model construction, topology update of a three-dimensional liver model soft deformation simulation, and haptic rendering acceleration. During the liver parenchyma separation simulation, a tetrahedral mesh is used for surface triangle subdivision and surface generation of the surgical wound. The shape-matching cluster is separated via component detection on an undirected graph constructed using the tetrahedral mesh. Results In our system, cluster-based shape matching is implemented on a GPU, whereas haptic rendering and topology updates are implemented on a CPU. Experimental results show that haptic rendering can be performed at a high frequency (> 900 Hz), whereas mesh skinning and graphics rendering can be performed at 45 fps. The topology update can be executed at an interactive rate (> 10 Hz) on a single CPU thread. Conclusion We propose an interactive hepatic parenchymal transection simulation method based on a tetrahedral structure. The tetrahedral mesh simultaneously supports physical model construction, topology update, and haptic rendering acceleration.

This letter presents a novel vibrotactile haptic system controlled by a smartphone that can be used for gait training of older adults. Compared to previous works, the system's modularity as well as its smartphone-based controller and user interface can enhance its usability and promote regular gait training of users during their daily living. Given the prevalence of reduced stride length and speed in older adults, we developed a biomechanical data-driven approach to enable improving those outcomes via modifying their underlying surrogates. A subject study was performed by recruiting 12 young participants (19–39 years) to assess the efficacy of the haptic system and our approach based on biomechanical surrogates. It was found that the participants could significantly increase their thigh and shank extensions (i.e., the surrogates) via the feedback provided by our system, and those increases resulted in higher values of their stride length and walking speed. The results provide a clear proof-of-concept for the developed biomechanics-driven haptic system for gait training of older adults to potentially improve their mobility and living independence.

Objective To develop a collision engine (haptic force feedback simulator) compatible with a 5-degrees-of-freedom (DOF) haptic wand. This has broad applications such as telerobotic ultrasound systems. Integrating force feedback into systems is critical to optimize remote scanning. A collision engine compatible with a 5-DOF haptic wand was developed based on the Gilbert–Johnson–Keerthi algorithm. The collision engine calculated force during collision between the wand and a virtual object based on code developed using MATLAB. A proportional force was subsequently returned to a user via the haptic wand, thereby simulating the collision force for the user. Three experiments were conducted to assess the accuracy of the collision engine on curved and flat surfaces. Results The average errors in calculation of distances between the wand and virtual object were 2.1 cm, 3.4 cm, and 4.2 cm for the model of the human hand, cylinder, and cuboid, respectively. The collision engine accurately simulated forces on a flat surface, though was less accurate on curved surfaces. Future work will incorporate haptic force feedback into a telerobotic ultrasound system. The haptic force simulator presented here may also be used in the development of ultrasound simulators for training and education.

Entering the 5G and internet of things (IoT) era, human–machine interfaces (HMIs) capable of providing humans with more intuitive interaction with the digitalized world have experienced a flourishing development in the past few years. Although the advanced sensing techniques based on complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) or microelectromechanical system (MEMS) solutions, e.g., camera, microphone, inertial measurement unit (IMU), etc., and flexible solutions, e.g., stretchable conductor, optical fiber, etc., have been widely utilized as sensing components for wearable/non-wearable HMIs development, the relatively high-power consumption of these sensors remains a concern, especially for wearable/portable scenarios. Recent progress on triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) self-powered sensors provides a new possibility for realizing low-power/self-sustainable HMIs by directly converting biomechanical energies into valuable sensory information. Leveraging the advantages of wide material choices and diversified structural design, TENGs have been successfully developed into various forms of HMIs, including glove, glasses, touchpad, exoskeleton, electronic skin, etc., for sundry applications, e.g., collaborative operation, personal healthcare, robot perception, smart home, etc. With the evolving artificial intelligence (AI) and haptic feedback technologies, more advanced HMIs could be realized towards intelligent and immersive human–machine interactions. Hence, in this review, we systematically introduce the current TENG HMIs in the aspects of different application scenarios, i.e., wearable, robot-related and smart home, and prospective future development enabled by the AI/haptic-feedback technology. Discussion on implementing self-sustainable/zero-power/passive HMIs in this 5G/IoT era and our perspectives are also provided.

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected our nation and economy gravely, which has led to exploiting ways of setting norms for the effective distribution of healthcare advancements beyond geographical boundaries. In this paper, we propose an approach for the rapid advancement and effective distribution of healthcare in India through the enormous potential in telemedicine and haptic technology. We further address the issues in India's current healthcare infrastructure occurring due to non-availability and vacancy of doctors, social development, such as the willingness of people to invest in telemedicine by statistically analyzing bar diagrams, tabulated data, and self-assembled visual graphics. Our study shows that the potential of technology-aided approaches such as telemedicine and haptic systems in healthcare is enormous, and through effective dissemination of awareness, training, and stakeholder involvement, telemedicine and haptics could change the norms in the advancement in the healthcare system of India

Purpose: To compare the stability of intraocular lens (IOL) insertion methods of sutured haptics in the bag with scleral fixation to those of in the bag insertion and scleral sulcus fixation. Methods: In group of only phacodonesis, two IOL insertion methods, in the bag insertion and sutured haptics in the bag with scleral fixation were compared. In group of phacodonesis with less than 90° zonulysis, two IOL insertion methods, sutured haptics in the bag with scleral fixation and scleral sulcus fixation were compared. Postoperative 2 months and 12 months refraction were compared with target refraction and the refractive change between postoperative 2 and 12 months were compared in each group. The change of anterior chamber depth (ACD) at postoperative 2 and 12 months were compared with preoperative ACD, and the change of ACD between postoperative 2 and 12 months were compared in each group. Results: In group of only phacodonesis, the typical in the bag insertion group showed significant ACD change between postoperative 2 and 12 months (p = 0.010), but the group of sutured haptics in the bag with scleral fixation didn’t show the significant ACD change (p = 0.515). In group of phacodonesis with less than 90° zonulysis, the sulcus scleral fixation method showed significant ACD change and significant refractive change (p = 0.015, p = 0.004), but the group of sutured haptics in the bag with scleral fixation method didn’t show the significant ACD nor refractive change (p = 0.713, p = 0.106) between postoperative 2 and 12 months. Conclusions: In eyes with zonular instability, sutured haptics in the bag with scleral fixation method can promote the postoperative stability of IOL.

In vascular interventional surgery, experienced physicians rely on proximal force sensing to detect the collision and reduce vascular injury caused by surgical tools. However, in robot-assisted tele-interventional surgery (RATIS), providing high-precision force feedback to physician is still a main challenge. In this paper, a haptic robot-assisted catheter operating system with a novel spring-based haptic force interface was developed. With a closed loop force adjustment system, the haptic force interface can provide accuracy force feedback. Moreover, a collision protection function with a proximal-force-based collision detection algorithm was proposed to improve surgical safety. In case of no collision, transparency of the teleoperated system is realized; in case of collision, the provided haptic force will be amplified. The results demonstrated the usability of the developed haptic robot-assisted catheter operating system with collision protection function.

Since haptic communications have an extreme requirement for the latency performance, the overdue content delivery will decrease the application experience. In order to reduce the transmission delay, we try to construct a cache-enabled D2D-assisted content-sharing framework, where the neighboring helpers preset contents and adjust their transmission power to timely serve more requesters. In particular, we modify the existing definition of the “closest” friend and take the social relationship into account to measure the overall influence caused by available neighboring helpers. However, such cooperation consumes the storage space and energy of the helpers, and accordingly, we introduce blockchain technology to propose an effective incentive mechanism where the helpers act as consensus users of blockchain and obtain the reward, i.e., the allocated computing power by the base station (BS), by contributing their local resources. Guided by this, the benefit of each helper is defined as a tradeoff of the reward and overheads. Meanwhile, we formulate the multiuser content delivery problem with the goal of maximizing the global benefits as the multiuser content delivery game. Then, we prove that the proposed game is an exact potential game (EPG) with at least one pure-strategy Nash equilibrium (NE). Meanwhile, the context-aware content delivery-based concurrent better reply (CCDCBR) algorithm is proposed to achieve a desirable solution. Finally, simulation results verify the validity of the proposed game model as well as the proposed algorithm.

Non-visual information is important for navigation in limited visibility conditions. We designed a haptic-based relocation task to examine blindfolded adults' use of geometric cues. Forty-eight participants learned to locate a corner in a parallelogram frame. They were then tested in different transformed frames: (a) a reverse-parallelogram, in which locations predicted by original length information and angle information conflicted, (b) a rectangle, which retained only length information, and (c) a rhombus, which retained only angle information. Results show that access to the environment's geometry through haptic modality is sufficient for relocation. However, adults' performances in the current task were different from that in visual tasks in previous findings. First, compared to previous findings in visual-based tasks, length information lost its priority. Approximately half of the participants relied on angle information in the conflict test and the other half relied on length. Second, though participants encoded both length and angle information in the learning phase, only one cue was relied on after the conflict test. Finally, though participants encoded the target location successfully, they failed to represent the global shape of the environment. We attribute adults' different performances in haptic-based and visual-based tasks to the high cognitive demands in encoding and using haptic spatial cues, especially length information.

Background Walking with a haptic tensile force applied to the hand in a virtual environment (VE) can induce adaptation effects in both chronic stroke and non-stroke individuals. These effects are reflected in spatiotemporal outcomes such as gait speed. However, the concurrent kinematic changes occurring in bilateral lower limb coordination have yet to be explored. Methods Chronic stroke participants were stratified based on overground gait speed into lower functioning (LF Results All groups showed some kinematic changes in thigh, leg and foot segments when gait speed increased during force and post-force leash as well as cane walking. These changes were also reflected in intersegmental coordination and 3D phase diagrams, which illustrated increased intersegmental trajectory areas (p Conclusions Individuals with chronic stroke who increased their gait speed when walking with tensile haptic forces and immediately after force removal, also displayed moderate concurrent changes in lower limb intersegmental coordination patterns in terms of angular displacement and velocity. Similar results were also seen with cane walking. Although symmetry was less affected, these findings appear favourable to the functional recovery of gait. Both the use of 3D phase diagrams and assigning Sobolev norm values are potentially effective for detecting and quantifying these coordination changes.

Online learning is an important aspect of higher education today. One-third of college students take at least one course online, and almost 70% of chief academic leaders say that online learning is critical to their long-term strategy [1]. Despite the success and growth of online education, the number of courses that currently offer a hands-on laboratory component is extremely limited, resulting in the lack of an entire category of engineering courses.

The asymmetry in bilateral teleoperation, i.e., the differences of mechanical structures, sizes, and number of joints between the master and slave robots, can introduce kinematicsr edundancy and workspace inequality problems. In this article, a novel shared autonomy control strategy is proposed for handling the asymmetry of bilateral teleoperation, which has two main contributions. First, to deal with kinematics redundancy, the proposed strategy provides a self-regulation algorithm of orientation that allows the operator to solely use the master position command to simultaneously control the slave’s position and orientation. Second, to deal with workspace inequality, the proposed strategy enables the slave’s workspace to be dynamically tunable to adapt to various task spaces without influencing the smoothness of the robot’s movement. The experiments on a platform consisting of a six-degree of freedom (DoF) UR10 robot and a 3-DoF haptic device are given to validate the effectiveness of the proposed control strategy., Funding agency:AI.MEE Program: AutoDIVE

Purpose Digital media has brought a revolution, making the world a global village. For people who are visually impaired and people with visual and hearing impairment, navigating through the digital world can be as precarious as moving through the real world. To enable them to connect with the digital world, we propose a solution, Haptic Encoded Language Framework (HELF), that uses haptic technology to enable them to write digital text using swiping gestures and understand the text through vibrations. Method We developed an Android application to present the concept of HELF and evaluate its performance. We tested the application on 13 users (five visually impaired and eight sighted individuals). Results The preliminary exploratory analysis of the proposed framework using the Android application developed reveals encouraging results. Overall, the reading accuracy has been found to be approximately 91%, and the average CPM is found to be 25.7. Conclusion The volunteering users of the HELF Android application found it useful as a means of using the digital media and recommended its usage as an assistive technology for the visually challenged. The results of their performance of using the application motivate further research and development in the proposed work to make HELF more usable by people who are visually impaired and people with visual and hearing impairment.

Legged robot navigation in extreme environments can hinder the use of cameras and laser scanners due to darkness, air obfuscation or sensor damage. In these conditions, proprioceptive sensing will continue to work reliably. In this paper, we propose a purely proprioceptive localization algorithm which fuses information from both geometry and terrain class, to localize a legged robot within a prior map. First, a terrain classifier computes the probability that a foot has stepped on a particular terrain class from sensed foot forces. Then, a Monte Carlo-based estimator fuses this terrain class probability with the geometric information of the foot contact points. Results are demonstrated showing this approach operating online and onboard a ANYmal B300 quadruped robot traversing a series of terrain courses with different geometries and terrain types over more than 1.2km. The method keeps the localization error below 20cm using only the information coming from the feet, IMU, and joints of the quadruped., Autonomous Robots. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:2005.01567

The booming wearable market and recent advances in material science has led to the rapid development of the various wearable sensors, actuators, and devices that can be worn, embedded in fabric, accessorized, or tattooed directly onto the skin. Wearable actuators, a subcategory of wearable technology, have attracted enormous interest from researchers in various disciplines and many wearable actuators and devices have been developed in the past few decades to assist and improve people’s everyday lives. In this paper, we review the actuation mechanisms, structures, applications, and limitations of recently developed wearable actuators including pneumatic and hydraulic actuators, shape memory alloys and polymers, thermal and hygroscopic materials, dielectric elastomers, ionic and conducting polymers, piezoelectric actuators, electromagnetic actuators, liquid crystal elastomers, etc. Examples of recent applications such as wearable soft robots, haptic devices, and personal thermal regulation textiles are highlighted. Finally, we point out the current bottleneck and suggest the prospective future research directions for wearable actuators.

As techniques for modern cataract surgery have expanded and premium intraocular lens (IOL) use is now widespread, patient expectations are high. The need for IOL explantation, whilst still low, remains an ongoing issue. Intraocular lens explantation can be challenging for a number of reasons and as such we have introduced an additional technique to add to the surgeon’s repertoire. Bimanual haptic stripping of fibrosis at the specific area where the haptic is adherent to the capsular bag is an effective strategy to aid in dissection of haptics without compromising the capsule or zonules. Given the challenges associated with IOL explantation, newly designed IOLs need to avoid these “sticking points” at which the IOLs interact with the fibrosed capsule. Techniques we have evolved and which are described below should assist anterior segment surgeons to facilitate IOL removal in an efficient and safe way.

BACKGROUND: Video games can be used to motivate repetitive movements in paediatric rehabilitation. Most upper limb videogaming therapies do not however include haptic feedback which can limit their impact. OBJECTIVE: To explore the effectiveness of interactive computer play with haptic feedback for improving arm function in children with cerebral palsy (CP). METHODS: Eleven children with hemiplegic CP attended 12 therapist-guided sessions in which they used a gaming station composed of the Novint Falcon, custom-built handles, physical supports for the child’s arm, games, and an application to manage and calibrate therapeutic settings. Outcome measures included Quality of Upper Extremity Skills Test (QUEST) and Canadian Occupational Performance Measure (COPM). The study protocol is registered on clinicaltrials.gov (NCT04298411). RESULTS: Participants completed a mean of 3858 wrist extensions and 6665 elbow/shoulder movements during the therapist-guided sessions. Clinically important improvements were observed on the dissociated and grasp dimensions on the QUEST and the performance and satisfaction scales of the COPM (all p< 0.05). CONCLUSION: This study suggests that computer play with haptic feedback could be a useful and playful option to help improve the hand/arm capacities of children with CP and warrants further study. The opportunities and challenges of using low-cost, mainstream gaming software and hardware for therapeutic applications are discussed.

Visual object recognition depends in large part on a domain-general ability (Richler et al. Psychol Rev 126(2): 226–251, 2019). Given evidence pointing towards shared mechanisms for object perception across vision and touch, we ask whether individual differences in haptic and visual object recognition are related. We use existing validated visual tests to estimate visual object recognition ability and relate it to performance on two novel tests of haptic object recognition ability (n = 66). One test includes complex objects that participants chose to explore with a hand grasp. The other test uses a simpler stimulus set that participants chose to explore with just their fingertips. Only performance on the haptic test with complex stimuli correlated with visual object recognition ability, suggesting a shared source of variance across task structures, stimuli, and modalities. A follow-up study using a visual version of the haptic test with simple stimuli shows a correlation with the original visual tests, suggesting that the limited complexity of the stimuli did not limit correlation with visual object recognition ability. Instead, we propose that the manner of exploration may be a critical factor in whether a haptic test relates to visual object recognition ability. Our results suggest a perceptual ability that spans at least across vision and touch, however, it may not be recruited during just fingertip exploration.

CURAC 2021 Annual Meeting, CURAC 2021, D��sseldorf, Germany, 16 Sep 2021 - 18 Sep 2021; Current directions in biomedical engineering 7(1), 11-16 (2021). doi:10.1515/cdbme-2021-1003 special issue: "Proceedings of the CURAC 2021 Annual Meeting, D��sseldorf, September 16-18, 2021", Published by De Gruyter, Berlin