A low-cost pedagogical environment for training on technologies for image-guided robotic surgery

This research presents a novel low-cost pedagogical environment oriented to ease the use experiential learning methods for training on image-guided robotic surgery technologies. The environment proposes a simplified surgical simulation use case: the movement of insertion and extraction of a needle, similar to an image-guided biopsy situation. The training environment is composed of a 3D-printed phantom, a CT scan of the phantom, a virtual reality environment that includes haptic information, an ad-hoc 1 degree of freedom (DOF) robotic system for insertion/extraction and a Novint Falcon, a low cost 3 DOF manipulator that allows achieving haptic feedback. A first pilot experience has been carried out in the ?Surgical Simulation and Planning? course of the Bachelor of Biomedical Engineering at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM). Results of the surveys carried out (by teachers and learners) show that the new project-based methodology improves in all cases the values of student?s satisfaction obtained using the classical methodology based on master classes and practices.