Surgical VR-simulators including haptic and tactile feedback can severely improve the training of surgeons. However, so far only minimally invasive surgery benefited from the capabilities of VR. For non-minimally invasive surgery, only one prototype to simulate the reaming of the acetabula during hip joint replacement surgery exists, which is unable to simulate the vibrations of the surgical reamer. By integrating electronic components, a tactile reamer, able to simulate the vibrations, could be developed. A qualitative assessment with orthopedic surgeons revealed that the simulated sound of the vibrations is realistic but the intensity of the vibrations needs to be improved.

We present the first VR training simulator for hip replacement surgeries. We solved the main challenges of this task - high and stable forces during the milling process while simultaneously a very sensitive feedback is required - by using an industrial robot for the force output and the development of a novel massively parallel haptic rendering algorithm with support for material removal.

We present the first VR training simulator for hip replacement surgeries. We solved the main challenges of this task - high and stable forces during the milling process while simultaneously a very sensitive feedback is required - by using an industrial robot for the force output and the development of a novel massively parallel haptic rendering algorithm with support for material removal.

Many VR-training application require the integration of haptics, i.e. for surgical training. However, surgical VR-training is still limited to minimal invasive surgeries. For surgeries where high forces occur, like hip replacement, no VR-training applications have been developed. One cause for this is the lack of appropriate haptic devices which can deliver high forces. Novel industrial collaborative robots can provide high forces. Although, they lack control interfaces allowing to use them as haptic devices. We present 4 approaches for using these robots as general, multipurpose haptic input and output devices. The implemented approach was integrated into a VR hip replacement training application. An initial assessment demonstrates the general feasibility of our solution.