Zeyu Wang, Frank P-W Lo, Junhong Chen, Jianing Qiu, Qian Chen, Yongqi Zhang, Chen Lin, Kyle Lam, James Calo, Benny P L Lo, Alexander J Thompson, Eric M Yeatman
Endoluminal interventions are crucial for both the diagnosis and treatment of gastrointestinal diseases. However, conventional endoscopic systems are designed for visual inspection and diagnosis, limiting their capacity to assess critical tissue properties such as texture, stiffness, and structural integrity. These unobserved mechanical signatures may contribute to clinically relevant failure modes, including missed lesions, incomplete resection, and adverse events driven by excessive wall loading. Inspired by the tactile sensing mechanisms of rat whiskers, this study introduces a bionic multichannel whisker system, as an additional sensing modality for endoluminal interventions. The system integrates high-fidelity tactile sensing hardware, and advanced signal processing algorithms, enabling precise and reliable measurements of tissue properties, as well as providing real-time radial force feedback. Calibration via affine transformation ensures cross-channel consistency and compensates for manufacturing and installation variances. Validation across multiple experimental settings, including robotic and manual operation, demonstrates performance in texture discrimination, shape reconstruction, and radial force estimation. The presented whisker system is compact to support integration with endoscopic instruments, providing a practical basis for complementing endoluminal diagnostic workflows and for further development of tactile sensing in surgical robotics.