Engineering researcher develops touching technology
Professor Javad Dargahi of Concordia’s Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering is in touch with the future of surgical practice.
“In the next few years, 80% of surgery will be endoscopic, what we call minimally invasive surgery (MIS),” he confidently predicts. This type of surgery includes the use of computercontrolled catheters to deliver medical tools through blood vessels directly to an affected area.
The catheter’s actions are monitored through controls, cameras and computer screens. For instance, endoscopy allows surgeons to introduce a camera on a flexible tube into a patient through a small incision, replacing other more invasive surgical procedures, thereby reducing the risk of trauma or infection and the length of convalesence. In some cases, robotics are integrated at the end of the computer-controlled catheter. Dargahi is working on ways to artificially introduce a sense of touch into the procedure, greatly expanding the opportunities to use MIS.
Dargahi is pioneering the development of technology that can enable the surgeon to virtually evaluate factors usually conveyed through touch (such as tenderness, temperature and the force of the intervention). Applying these tactile sensors to existing robotic equipment allows surgeons to perform a broader range of procedures with MIS methods.
Together with colleagues at McGill, Dargahi is working on an application of the technology specifically for heart surgery. Currently, complications with the heart’s mitral valve require annuloplasty to retighten the valve that can malfunction due to congenital factors or age. To tighten the valve preoperly, stitches must be made on the firmer tissue around the valve. His technology will enable the surgeon to determine the location of that tissue without actually having to open the sternum, the former method for the procedure.
He is already well on his way to a patent for a tiny, haptic sensor that can be attached to a computer-controlled catheter. “I have designed a tactile display integrated with the surgical or medical device,” explains Dargahi. Most importantly, Dargahi is developing an interface so that the surgeon will feel whatever texture the sensor encounters through a sensor pad connected to a joystick.
He is also collaborating with Lyes Kadem (see related story in this issue) on a project that would integrate miniature piezoelectric sensors into an artificial heart valve. The valve’s motion would provide an electric charge, in real time, to power the sensors. In other words, the heart beats would power a monitor that could be measuring blood pressure or blood glucose levels and relaying that information.
Although he has focused on biomedical possibilities, Dargahi’s tactile technology has “umpteen” applications. “It can be used for robotics, in aerospace, and in entertainment fields, for instance, for gaming,” he says.
Last year, Dargahi co-authored Artificial Tactile Sensing in Biomedical Engineering with McGraw-Hill. The book offers an overview of the work currently being done in the field. The volume earned honorable mention in the Engineering and Technology category of the Professional and Scholarly Excellence (PROSE) Awards in February 2010.
Related links:
• Javad Dargahi's web page
• PROSE Awards
• Dargahi's Artificial Tactile Sensing in Biomedical Engineering