Content area
Open Spina Bifida (OSB) is a congenital neural tube defect, and traditional open surgery poses significant risk to both mother and baby. The recent development of 2mm Da Vinci continuum tools provides a minimally invasive alternative, enabling robotic in-utero OSB repair through small uterine ports. However, the complex bending behavior of these continuum tools makes precise control challenging. Consequently, this work presents a high-fidelity Da Vinci OSB repair virtual reality simulator with continuum tools for surgeon training. The simulator integrates soft body physics for tissue deformation, a plugin for handling suture interactions, and haptic virtual fixtures to enhance spatial awareness. Evaluation experiments demonstrated virtual tool accuracy with end-effector trajectory errors of 2.07mm, 3.10mm, and 3.25mm for pure bending, figure-eight tracing, and helix tracing tasks, respectively. A user study with four expert surgeons supports the simulator’s feasibility, with positive feedback received on realism and training value.