Mechanism For Adaptive Virtual Reality Feedback

This work presents development and testing of two haptic mechanisms to simulate epidural needle insertion procedure. To configure the force feedback accuracy, we measured 20 insertions from patients in-vivo during a clinical trial. The graphics and forces adapt to the BMI of individual patients. Two haptic mechanisms were constructed: An electromagnetic haptic device (Fig. 1) and a motor driven haptic device (Fig. 2.). The resulting closed-loop system comprises manikin using four sensors and three force feedback components which can connect to our developed virtual reality epidural simulator 3D computer graphics [1]. Our literature review identified that thirty one epidural simulators have been implemented for clinical practice over the last thirty years either commercially or for research [2]. The purpose of this mechanism is to: i) connect the manikin device to computer based virtual reality graphics, ii) model insertions on various BMIs, iii) use measured data driven approach, iv) track needle orientation and depth using sensors, v) model accurate loss-of-resistance (LOR) feeling, vi) saline should escape at loss of resistance, vii) different feeling for each tissue layer, viii) mimic cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) leak on dural puncture.