The collection of tactile information in minimally invasive surgery can give the surgeons important information about the tactile nature of the tissues being manipulated. In this paper, the dimensional design of a tactile sensor with an inverted V-shaped indenter is analyzed to distinguish the relative hardness and calculate the shear modulus of tissue. Contact analysis is performed between the tactile sensor and the elastic tissue according to the Barber’s method, in the case of a small ratio of the inner and outer contact radii, and Grinberg and Kuritsyn’s method in the case of a large ratio, respectively. Two analytical solutions are derived to show the relation of pressure, shear modulus and ratio. The demarcation point, 0.41 of ratio, is found which determines a choice of two load functions. The analytical solutions can be used to identify the relative hardness and calculate the shear modulus directly, which are verified in the experiments. Although the sensor size is big now, the measurement method for tissue identification is promising. The contact process is also capable to be used for analyzing the interaction between other medical equipment and elastic tissue.

中文翻译：

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带有倒V形压头的触觉传感器，用于识别弹性组织

在微创外科手术中收集触觉信息可以为外科医生提供有关被操纵组织的触觉性质的重要信息。本文分析了带有倒V型压头的触觉传感器的尺寸设计，以区分相对硬度并计算组织的剪切模量。在内部和外部接触半径的比率较小的情况下，根据Barber方法在触觉传感器和弹性组织之间进行接触分析；在比率较大的情况下，分别按照Grinberg和Kurisyn's方法进行接触分析。推导了两个解析解以显示压力，剪切模量和比率的关系。找到比率的分界点0.41，它确定了两个负载函数的选择。该分析溶液可用于识别相对硬度并直接计算剪切模量，这些已在实验中得到验证。尽管现在传感器尺寸很大，但是用于组织识别的测量方法很有希望。接触过程还能够用于分析其他医疗设备与弹性组织之间的相互作用。