BM 658 MEMS Design Project:- Topic, Motivation/ Rationale and Problem Definition Submitted by: 09d26009 Prithviraj Pegu

08d26003 Ankit Agarwal 08d11010 Ketan Chopra

Topic: MEMS Tactile Sensor in Surgical Tools Motivation/ Rationale:In recent times, minimally invasive surgery (MIS) has gained much popularity, with 40% of surgeries performed in this manner and an expected growth up to 80% in next 15 years [1]. Also known as minimal access surgery (MAS) or key hole surgery, it distinctly outsmarts traditional open surgery in quite a few grounds like less tissue trauma; less postoperative pain; faster recovery; fewer postoperative complications; and reduced hospital stay. These advantages may be translated into a total health care cost reduction for commercial and governmental institutions . However, MIS has a number of disadvantages includingloss of tactile feedback; the need for increased technical expertise; a possibly longer duration of the surgery; and difficult removal of bulky organs [2]. Problem Definition:What is needed is an instrument technology which combines the limited collateral tissue damage of a minimally invasive procedure with the dexterity and custom fit afforded by the open surgical approach [3]. Wherein, MEMS tactile sensors come into play. These are devices that can be mounted on existing MIS surgical tools e.g. catheter, laparoscope etc. and compensate for the absence of the sensation of touch. Nicholls and Lee [4] define a tactile sensor to be "a device or system that can measure a given property of an object or contact event through physical contact between the sensor and the object". According to this definition, a binary contact sensor for detecting simply the presence or absence of the body is a tactile sensor. They also consider other quantities that can take part in the contact process such as temperature, force, moisture content, surface texture, etc. [2].

A tactile sensing system for MIS comprises three basic parts: a tactile sensor part to extract the tactile data through contact, a tactile data processing part that processes the transduced data to obtain useable information and a tactile display part that presents this information to the surgeon [2]. In this project we are going to design a MEMS tactile sensing device that will aid diagnosis through remote palpation and also the remote manipulation of internal organs etc. (tentatively). References:- 1. KEITH J. REBELLO, MEMBER, IEEE: Applications of MEMS in Surgery. 2. M.E.H. Eltaib, J.R. Hewit: Tactile sensing technology for minimal access surgerya review. 3. DUPONT, PIERRE E. pierre@bu.edu: Steerable MEMS Instruments for Precise Intracardiac Surgery. 4. Lee MH, Nicholls HR. Tactile sensing for mechatronicsa state-ofthe-art survey. Mechatronics 1999;9(1):131.