A surgical apparatus includes a surgical device, configured to be manipulated by a user to perform a procedure on a patient, and a computer system. The computer system is programmed to implement control parameters for controlling the surgical device to provide at least one of haptic guidance to the user and a limit on user manipulation of the surgical device, based on a relationship between an anatomy of the patient and at least one of a position, an orientation, a velocity, and an acceleration of a portion of the surgical device, and to adjust the control parameters in response to movement of the anatomy during the procedure.

Haptic guidance system and method

A method for controlling a surgical device is provided. The method includes manipulating the surgical device to perform a procedure on a patient; determining whether a relationship between an anatomy of the patient and a position, an orientation, a velocity, and/or an acceleration of a surgical tool of the surgical device corresponds to a desired relationship between the anatomy and the position, the orientation, the velocity, and/or the acceleration of the surgical tool; and imposing a constraint on the surgical device if the relationship does not correspond to the desired relationship and/or a detection device is unable to detect a position of the anatomy and/or the position of the surgical tool.

Method and apparatus for controlling a haptic device

http://web.stanford.edu/class/cs277/resources/papers/Srinivasan1997.pdf

Haptics in virtual environments: Taxonomy, research status, and challenges

Tapping on surfaces in a typical virtual environment feels like contact with soft foam rather than a hard object. The realism of such interactions can be dramatically improved by superimposing event-based, high-frequency transient forces over traditional position-based feedback. When scaled by impact velocity, hand-tuned pulses and decaying sinusoids produce haptic cues that resemble those experienced during real impacts. Our new method for generating appropriate transients inverts a dynamic model of the haptic device to determine the motor forces required to create prerecorded acceleration profiles at the user's fingertips. After development, the event-based haptic paradigm and the method of acceleration matching were evaluated in a carefully controlled user study. Sixteen individuals blindly tapped on nine virtual and three real samples, rating the degree to which each felt like real wood. Event-based feedback achieved significantly higher realism ratings than the traditional rendering method. The display of transient signals made virtual objects feel similar to a real sample of wood on a foam substrate, while position feedback alone received ratings similar to those of foam. This work provides an important new avenue for increasing the realism of contact in haptic interactions.

Improving contact realism through event-based haptic feedback

Haptic interfaces

Data visualization is a technique used to explore real or simulated data by representing it in a form more suitable for comprehension. This form is usually visual since vision provides a means to perceive large quantities of spatial information quickly. However, people who are blind or visually impaired must rely on other senses to accomplish this perception. Haptic interface technology makes digital information tangible, which can provide an additional medium for data exploration and analysis. Unfortunately, the amount of information that can be perceived through a haptic interface is considerably less than that which can be perceived through vision, so a haptic environment must be enhanced to aid the comprehension of the display. This enhancement includes speech output and the addition of object properties such as friction and texture. Textures are generated which can be modified according to a characteristic or property of the object to which it is applied. For example, textures can be used as an analog to color in graphical displays to highlight variations in data. Taking all of these factors into account, methods for representing various forms of data are presented here with the goal of providing a haptic visualization system without the need for a visual component. The data forms considered include one-, two-, and three-dimensional (1-D, 2-D, and 3-D) data which can be rendered using points, lines, surfaces, or vector fields similar to traditional graphical displays. The end result is a system for the haptic display of these common data sets which is accessible for people with visual impairments.

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jason_Fritz3/publication/3331638_Design_of_a_haptic_data_visualization_system_for_people_with_visual_impairments/links/54409cd10cf2be1758d0091f.pdf

Design of a haptic data visualization system for people with visual impairments

Recent research in haptic systems has begun to focus on the generation of textures to enhance haptic simulations. Synthetic texture generation can be achieved through the use of stochastic modeling techniques to produce random and pseudo-random texture patterns. These models are based on techniques used in computer graphics texture generation and textured image analysis and modeling. The goal for this project is to synthesize haptic textures that are perceptually distinct. Two new rendering methods for haptic texturing are presented for implementation of stochastic based texture models using a 3 DOF point interaction haptic interface. The synthesized textures can be used in a myriad of applications, including haptic data visualization for blind individuals and overall enhancement of haptic simulations.

Stochastic models for haptic texture

Due to the lack of high-power sources along with strong electromagnetic absorption by water vapor at frequencies between ~100 GHz and ~10 THz, there are very few radar systems, or any other systems for that matter, operating in this region of the spectrum. For this reason, it is sometimes referred to as the terahertz gap. Source technology, however, is improving, thus facilitating radar systems operating in this new frontier of the electromagnetic spectrum. At the lower end of this spectral region near the millimeter/submillimeter transition, components are more readily available and atmospheric attenuation is moderate in comparison to higher frequencies. Utilizing components that can generate on the order of 50 mW of power, a real aperture radar for imaging surfaces up to several hundred meters has been developed. The goal of this research is to determine if this frequency can provide adequate 3D surface imaging through Degraded Visual Environments (DVEs) yet consume less volume than existing systems at 94 GHz. Transmitting a vertically oriented fan beam to scan the Field of View (FOV) in azimuth and receiving at two vertically, displaced locations with identical fan beams forming an interferometer, three dimensional images of the surface topography (in range, azimuth and height) can be generated. This paper describes the design of the prototype system and presents initial results.

3D surface imaging through visual obscurants using a sub-THz radar

Due to the lack of high-power sources along with strong electromagnetic absorption by water vapor at frequencies between ~100 GHz and ~10 THz, there are very few radar systems, or any other systems for that matter, operating in this region of the spectrum. For this reason, it is sometimes referred to as the terahertz gap. Source technology, however, is improving, thus facilitating radar systems operating in this new frontier of the electromagnetic spectrum. At the lower end of this spectral region near the millimeter/submillimeter transition, components are more readily available and atmospheric attenuation is moderate in comparison to higher frequencies. Utilizing components that can generate on the order of 50 mW of power, a real aperture radar for imaging surfaces up to several hundred meters has been developed. Transmitting a vertically oriented fan beam to scan the Field of View (FOV) in azimuth and receiving at two vertically, displaced locations with identical fan beams forming an interferometer, three dimensional images of the surface topography (in range, azimuth and height) can be generated. This paper describes the design of the prototype system and presents initial results, expanding on prior work [1].

A sub-terahertz real aperture imaging radar

The design of an open-path 320 GHz - 340 GHz coherent transmissometer for experimental measurements of amplitude
scintillation, phase scintillation, angle-of-arrival (AoA) fluctuations, and transverse coherence near the 325.1529 GHz
water absorption resonance is presented. The system uses a uni-directional transmitter and two phase-coherent receivers
with adjustable transverse. The objective of the experiment is to verify and improve existing propagation models for use
by designers of applied THz systems for remote sensing, radiolocation, or communications. System stability will be
verified using a short range near-ground test path of several ~10's of meters length using a cable for locking the
transmitter local oscillator (LO) to the receivers' LOs. This short range configuration, similar to tests conducted at
Flatville, Illinois during the 1980s, permits characterization of system errors in all of the above parameters, thus
yielding a baseline for the long range experiments. Characterization of the phase-coherent RF link will be studied vis-a-vis
anticipated theoretical performance based on the Rytov approximation. The system will then be configured for long
term open-path measurements on a 1.78 km elevated link between the University of Colorado at Boulder (CU) and the
National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) Mesa site at the NOAA-NIST campus in
Boulder, Colorado. The system will provide long range coherent THz propagation statistics during continuous longduration
study of turbulent atmospheric propagation effects over an extensive array of atmospheric conditions in a
realistic operational environment.

Jason Fritz

Papers

Design of a haptic data visualization system for people with visual impairments

Stochastic models for haptic texture

3D surface imaging through visual obscurants using a sub-THz radar

A sub-terahertz real aperture imaging radar

Development of an open path THz transmissometer for deterministic and random propagation studies