Haptic-Enabled Digital Rectal Examination Simulator Using Pneumatic Bladder
A highly flexible, programmable prostate palpation simulator using a pneumatic-driven, property-changing silicone mock-up with multi-layered bladder cells that mimic stiffness, size, and nodule changes, validated by medical professionals as more realistic than conventional simulators.
Researchers: Aishwari Talhan and Seokhee Jeon
Currently available prostate palpation simulators are based on either a physical mock-up or pure virtual simulation, both with inherent limitations: the former lacks flexibility in presenting abnormalities because of the static nature of the mock-up, while the latter has realism issues in haptic feedback due to limited hardware performance. This work presents a highly flexible and programmable simulator with high haptic fidelity, based on a pneumatic-driven, property-changing silicone prostate mock-up embedded in a human torso mannequin. The mock-up has seven pneumatically controlled, multi-layered bladder cells that mimic the stiffness, size, and location changes of nodules — size is controlled by inflating the bladder with positive pressure, and a hard nodule is generated using the particle jamming technique. The three most common prostate abnormalities are selected for demonstration, with multiple progressive stages designed based on medical data. A human perception experiment performed by actual medical professionals confirms the simulator exhibits higher realism and usability than conventional simulators.
