Article intro: Recent Advances in Robot-Assisted Surgery: Soft Tissue Contact Identification

A relevant article was published at the IEEE SACI2019 conference from Nagy et al., "Recent Advances in Robot-Assisted Surgery: Soft Tissue Contact Identification":

"Robot-Assisted Minimally Invasive Surgery (RAMIS)   is   becoming   standard-of-care   in   western   medicine. RAMIS  offers  better  patient  outcome  compared  to  traditional open   surgery,   however,   the   surgeons’   ability   to   identify   the tissues  with  the  sense  of  touch  is  missing  from  most  robotic systems.    Regarding    haptic    feedback,    the    most    promising diagnostic  technique  is  probably  palpation;  a  physical  contact examination method through which information can be gathered about  the  underlying  structures  by  gently  pressing  with  the fingers.  In  open  surgery,  palpation  is  widely  used  to  identify blood  vessels,  tendons  or  even  tumors;  and  the  knowledge  on the  exact  location  of  such  elements  is  often  crucial  with  respect to the outcome of the intervention. This paper presents a review of  the  actual  research  directions  in  the  field  of  palpation  in RAMIS."