Haptic rendering for VR laparoscopic surgery simulation.

This project concerns the application of haptic feedback to a VR laparoscopic surgery simulator. Haptic attributes such as mass, friction, elasticity, roughness and viscosity are individually modeled, validated and applied to the existing visual simulation created by researchers at Monash University. Haptic feedback is an essential element in an immersive and realistic virtual reality laparoscopic training simulator. The haptic system must display stable, continuous and realistic multi-dimensional force feedback, and its inclusion should enhance the simulators training capability. Stability is a recurring concern throughout haptic history, and will be tackled with the implementation of a stable control algorithm and a passive environment model. Haptic force feedback modeling, systems implementation and validation studies form the principal areas of new work associated with this project.