Development of digital libraries of virtual tissue deformation for surgical training using virtual reality and haptic robotic feedback

• Grant number: 24/03358-8
• Support Opportunities: Research Grants - Innovative Research in Small Business - PIPE
• Start date: February 01, 2025
• End date: January 31, 2027
• Field of knowledge: Engineering - Biomedical Engineering - Medical Engineering
• Principal Investigator: Elen Collaço de Oliveira
• Grantee: Elen Collaço de Oliveira
• Company: VIRTUAL CIRURGIA LTDA
• CNAE: Desenvolvimento de programas de computador sob encomenda ; Desenvolvimento e licenciamento de programas de computador customizáveis ; Desenvolvimento e licenciamento de programas de computador não-customizáveis
• Associated researchers: Kim Tanabe de Moura Leite ; Murilo Marques Dias Nogueira ; Pedro Tonini Rosenberg Schneider ; Philippe Bertrand
• Associated scholarship(s): 25/12573-2 - Unity Development of the Immersive Virtual Gastrointestinal Surgery Environment, BP.TT; 25/06478-7 - Integration between the XPBD Simulation Engine and the Haptic Robot, BP.TT; 25/07221-0 - Creation and Texturing of 3D Models of Gastric Anatomy, Surgical Instruments, and the Operating Room Environment, BP.TT; 25/07222-6 - Backend Programming - Core Logic of the XPBD Simulation Engine, BP.TT

Abstract

Minimally invasive surgery techniques through videolaparoscopy and robotics have transformed surgical procedures, which are still performed through open surgeries in Brazil's public health system. The global conduct of surgical procedure training still has a significant ethical and operational problem, still using animals, human cadavers, or even real patients. Moreover, there is a lack of availability of experienced surgeons for knowledge transfer. Virtual Reality (VR) integrated with haptic robotic response, on the other hand, enables easy access to surgeon-guided training, promoting the realism and repeatability of procedures, at a low cost and without the ethical issues involved. However, due to the lack of a robust physical and computational deformation model, there is still no immersive VR training simulator on the market capable of deforming a non-rigid human organ (soft bodies), simulating the haptic material properties, such as friction and stiffness, in a realistic and intuitive manner. Thus, this project aims to develop reusable, computationally efficient, and realistic libraries for the deformation of virtual soft bodies for surgical training using VR and haptic response. The libraries will have an integration that calculates the response between the haptic robot and the virtual environment's physics, making it possible to palpate a virtual soft body through a haptic robot, obtain the corresponding force response to the palpation in the robot, calculate the corresponding deformation in the mesh of the palpated body, and integrate the calculated deformation into the simulator's rendering system in real time. The chosen development and validation environment will be the minimally invasive surgical procedure of gastrectomy, one of the most performed in Brazil and the world. Its main innovations are a set of modular libraries that can be reusable and easily incorporated into various surgical contexts, potentially impacting the business of Virtual Surgery, reducing delivery time, production cost of simulators, and fidelity of simulators with real procedures. This allows positioning the company as a pioneer in the global market in delivering fully immersive soft body surgical training solutions, meeting the training needs of doctors, as well as continuing education for health professionals. This technology can improve learning performance, patient safety, and contribute to the quality of health services worldwide. The project will have the support of the Teaching, Research, and Innovation in Surgery Laboratory (LEPIC) of the Hospital das Clínicas (HC) of USP for the validation of the technology to be developed. (AU)