Development of a Soft Tissue Elastography Robotic Arm (STiERA).

High fidelity surgical simulations must rely upon accurate soft tissue models to ensure realism of the simulations. Simulating multi-layer tissue becomes increasingly complex due to the specific mechanical properties of each individual layer. We have developed a Soft Tissue Elastography Robotic Arm (STiERA) system capable of identifying layer specific properties of multi-layer constructs while maintaining the integrity of each layer. The system was validated using tissue mimicking agar gel phantoms and showed great promise by identifying the layer specific properties with accuracy of greater than 80% when compared to known ground truth values from a commercial material testing system.