Within this activity, UNISI and WEART aim at developing a system integrating a robotic arm with innovative grippers, interfaces, and control algorithms to assist surgeons in their operations (see Fig. [CONCEPT]). UNISI will focus on the development of highly versatile, modular, sterilizable collaborative grippers that can manipulate several different tools without needing complex tool-change procedures and, together with WEART, will also develop human-robot interfaces which will comprise a set of wearable devices capable of detecting user’s commands and of providing cutaneous haptic feedback signals encoding information on the robot and task state. The envisaged interfaces will create a bilateral human-robot communication channel and will be designed for and with surgeons (also considering virtual simulation and training) to ensure their ergonomics and usability. WEART will develop a surgical VR simulation environment, for training surgeons and letting them familiarize themselves with the use of the robotic assistant consisting of a collaborative arm equipped with a collaborative gripper. The idea is that the novel grippers developed by UNISI within the project will be tested and simulated in a VR environment, enabling training sessions for surgeons. The envisaged VR experience will be augmented with haptic feedback provided by glove-like wearable haptic interfaces worn by the user during the simulation. These interfaces will allow the user to perceive forces, textures and thermal cues during the interactions with the patients, mediated or not by surgical tools. The training environment is meant to let the surgeons familiarize themselves with the use of a robotic assistant consisting of a collaborative arm equipped with a collaborative gripper and commanded through an additional sensorimotor interface.
