A research team at the Tokyo Institue of Technology have developed a new system that helps doctors conduct surgery remotely and feel it. The new technology as well as enabling surgeons to view minimally invasive surgery through 3D virtual reality glasses also, more crucially, conveys the physical, tactile feeling of the medical tools on the patients body to the operating surgeon.
The technology was developed with the aim of helping surgeons “perform more precise laparoscopic surgery (keyhole surgery)” by applying a system of “multi degree forceps which provide force feedback to the surgeon”. The forceps are controlled through a stylus type device with the user wearing a virtual reality headset displaying the image broadcast from a camera attached to the surgery tools. A series of pneumatically and electrically driven motors convey the amount of pressure the forceps being controlled assert back to the stylus the surgeon is holding remotely, thus giving the same amount of force as if actually holding the surgery tools.
A complex program also analyzes the surgeons movements and corrects and stabilizes them when translated to the forceps being used on the patient. Large movements on the stylus end of the surgeon are downsized to the according area being operated on, meaning far greater accuracy in very small areas. We were able to try out the tools ourselves and despite a very shaky hand and jerky movements the tools were remarkably stable. The accuracy and ease of use was demonstrated through users manipulating a rubber band and some shape puzzles, however the technology has also been successfully carried out in in-vivo experiments.
The technology ultimately could mean that in the future surgery could be performed by doctors in different parts of the world in near to real environments. Potentially this has the ability then to make particularly difficult operations available to those who may not otherwise be able to afford it.
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Darrell is a native of the U.K. and has been in Japan since 2002. He consults on innovation and strategy at the 
