Kinect Hacked to Give Force Feedback During Robotic Surgery

People all around the world are adapting Microsoft‘s Kinect controller for all kinds of purposes. A group of graduate engineering students from the University of Washington are working on using it to give force feedback to surgeons performing robotic surgery. Using the existing technology and software drivers, they wrote code to map in 3D the operating field in which the instruments operate, and sent back that information to the joystick that controls the robot. It gives direct force feedback when certain structures such as bone are hit, but it is also possible to define off-limits areas for the robot to protect vital organs. The research seems to be at a very early stage (although the researchers optimistically state that a paper will be published soon), with sensors still needing to be scaled down and resolution to be increased before it is actually usable in practice.
News story: UW students adapt gaming hardware for robotic surgery…