A Haptic Interface with Motor/Brake System for Colonoscopy Simulation

Training for colonoscopy, which is the examination and treatment of the colon, is often performed on real patients once the physician has passed the novice level. This increases the risk to the patient and lengthens the procedure time. Since a decade ago, there has been research on virtual reality surgery simulators with haptic feedback. The main goal is to provide an alternative to traditional training methods on animals, cadavers or real patients. Haptic feedback is a key feature for every surgery simulator for the training of hand-eye coordination. In this paper, a compact and portable haptic interface is presented for the colonoscopy. The haptic interface provides position data acquisition and force feedback in linear and rotational directions with combined electrical motors and passive brakes to cover a large range of forces. The motorized drives are used for active force feedback and friction compensation and the brakes are used for high force rendering without slipping. This novel design allows decoupled motion in both directions.