Palpable: Multi-sensing tool for minimally invasive surgery
The Palpable project: Multi-sensing tool for minimally invasive surgery (MIS), commenced in January 2023 for a 2-year duration. Targeting the healthcare sector, its goal is to create a finger-like, palpation tool for collecting, processing and interpreting valuable sensory data, enabling new functionality that could result in breakthroughs in the fields of surgical tools, photonic, soft robotics and multi-sensing systems. The tool will be ideal for accurately identifying and visualising tissue abnormalities, and its modular design will seek to limit the number of disposable parts in favour of recyclable, sterilisable components in order to maximise sustainability and promote cost-effectiveness during manufacture.
Each year, 310 million major surgeries are performed worldwide, including 20 million operations in Europe. Around 10% of these consist of laparoscopies; the most widely used type of MIS. However, there is a need for additional haptic, visual and tactile feedback during MIS so that the invasiveness and duration of operations can be minimised, while safety and functionality are prioritised. Achieving this would deliver huge benefits to healthcare professionals and patients.
Palpable will result in a prototype for a new, precise, as well as low-cost, tool that provides operating surgeons with valuable tactile feedback during MIS, helping to improve patient outcomes and reduce post-op hospitalisations. The tool will contribute to: reducing tissue damage, postoperative analgesic requirements and blood loss; decreased hospitalisation time; and better cosmetic results. Technically, a number of existing issues with MIS, such as reduced vision and freedom of movement, and impaired tactile information, could also be resolved, transporting MIS further into the future.
Essex Innovation Centre is responsible for the creation of the readout hardware unit that will essentially power the tactile device, coordinate the operation of several, state-of-the-art sensing technologies, digitise its various sensors’ readings and provide high-resolution information back to the surgeon.
Partners: Medtronic, Sofradim Production SASU, Bendabl, Hellenic Mediterranean University, University of Turin, Queen Mary University of London, Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute, The European Association for Endoscopic Surgery and Essex Innovation Centre who is also the Project Coordinator.
The Palpable project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe programme.