Restoring surgeons’ sense of touch with robotic fingertips - Robohub

The article discusses an innovative EU-funded research project called PALPABLE, which aims to restore surgeons’ lost sense of touch during minimally invasive and robotic surgeries. Modern surgical techniques, while less invasive and aided by robots and AI, have deprived surgeons of direct tactile feedback, making it harder to detect tissue abnormalities such as tumors. The PALPABLE team, comprising surgeons and engineers across Europe, is developing a soft robotic fingertip equipped with fiber-optic sensors embedded in a flexible silicone dome. This fingertip can detect tissue stiffness by measuring changes in light signals as the probe presses against organs, translating these signals into visual maps that highlight variations in tissue firmness to guide surgeons during operations. The loss of tactile feedback is significant because the ability to palpate tissue helps surgeons distinguish between healthy and abnormal tissue, crucial for accurately identifying tumor margins. Removing too much tissue can impair function, while removing too little risks cancer recurrence. The new technology aims to provide a functional equivalent of touch by creating color-coded stiffness maps, enabling