Development of haptic interface to simulate vocal fold surgery

The presence of robots in surgery rooms made possible the development of the so-called minimally invasive surger- ies (MIS), and also allowed the emergence of robotic telesurgery. The dynamic control of these systems should be designed ai m- ing at producing forces and complex movements such as incisions, dissections, and sutures. The dynamic controls are present not only in handlers but also in actuators and sensors that simulate the presence of organs, providing the tactile feedback of the di f- ferent structures. These devices are called haptic interfaces. They are used in the medicine field on many types of virtual surger- ies. Computational methods were developed and used to simulate the movements of the vocal folds in three dimensions, u sing the anisotropic body-cover concept to define the structure. The project carried out consists in a haptic interface able to reproduce the sense of touch in small structures as vocal folds.