Augmented Reality Visio-Haptic Techniques for Medical Training (2007-2011) | Professor Nigel W. John

Professor Nigel W. John FEG FLSW

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Augmented Reality Visio-Haptic Techniques for Medical Training (2007-2011)



Palpsim is an augmented reality environment for training femoral palpation and needle insertion - the opening steps of many interventional radiology procedures. Palpsim has been developed to allow trainees to feel a virtual patient using their own hands (Coles, John, Gould, Caldwell, & others, 2011). The palpation step requires both force and tactile feedback. For the palpation haptics effect, two off-the-shelf force feedback devices have been linked together to provide a hybrid device that gives five degrees of force feedback. This is combined with a custom built hydraulic interface to provide a pulse like tactile effect. The needle interface is based on a modified PHANTOM Omni end effector that allows a real interventional radiology needle to be mounted and used during simulation.

This project was undertaken by my PhD student Tim Coles, and in collaboration with the Italian Institute of Technology in Genoa. Coles, T.R. (2011). Investigating Augmented Reality Visio-Haptic Techniques for Medical Training. PhD Thesis, Bangor University.

Tim now lives in Australia. After completing a contract with CSIRO to work on surgical simulators, he has set up his own business that provides guided running tours of Brisbane.

Further Reading

  1. Coles, T. R., John, N. W., Gould, D., Caldwell, D. G., & others. (2011). Integrating haptics with augmented reality in a femoral palpation and needle insertion training simulation. Haptics, IEEE Transactions On, 4(3), 199–209.