Evaluation of the Hand Motion and Peeling Force in Inner Limiting Membrane Peeling

Robot assistance in membrane peeling may improve precision and dexterity or prevent complications by task automation. To design robotic devices, surgical instruments' velocity, acceptable position/pose error, and load ability need to be precisely quantified.

A fiber Bragg grating and inertial sensors are attached to forceps. Data collected from forceps and microscope images are used to quantify a surgeon's hand motion (tremor, velocity, posture perturbation) and operation force (voluntary and involuntary) in inner limiting membrane peeling. All peeling attempts are performed on rabbit eyes in vivo by expert surgeons.

The root mean square (RMS) of the tremor amplitude is 20.14 µm (transverse, X), 23.99 µm (transverse, Y), and 11.68 µm (axial, Z). The RMS posture perturbation is 0.43° (around X), 0.74° (around Y), and 0.46° (around Z). The RMS angular velocities are 1.74°/s (around X), 1.66°/s (around Y), and 1.46°/s (around Z), whereas the RMS velocities are 1.05 mm/s (transverse) and 1.44 mm/s (axial). The RMS force is 7.39 mN (voluntary force), 7.41 mN (operation force), and 0.5 mN (involuntary force).

Hand motion and operation force are measured in membrane peeling. These parameters provide a potential baseline for determining a surgical robot's accuracy, velocity, and load capacity.

Baseline data are obtained that can be used to guide ophthalmic robot design/evaluation.