Title: Design of a tissue resonator indenter device for measurement of soft tissue viscoelastic properties

Authors: Alireza Hariri, Jean W. Zu

Addresses: Hatch Limited, Sheridan Science and Technology Park, 2800 Speakman Drive, Mississauga, Ontario, L5K 2R7, Canada. ' Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Toronto, 5 King's College Road, Toronto, Ontario, M5S 3G8, Canada

Abstract: The design of a new device called tissue resonator indenter device (TRID) for measuring soft tissue viscoelastic properties is presented. The two degrees-of-freedom device works based on mechanical vibration principles. When TRID comes into contact with a soft tissue, it identifies the tissue|s viscoelastic properties through the change of its natural frequencies and damping ratios. By working in the linear viscoelastic domain, TRID is designed to identify tissue properties in the range of 0-100 Hz. Assuming Kelvin tissue model, a method is developed for determining unknown tissue parameters using input-output data from TRID. A parametric identification method using the prediction error approach is proposed for identifying the unknown tissue parameters, which is proved to be globally identifiable, in a grey-box state-space model. The effectiveness of the identification method is demonstrated using simulation in the presence of considerable input and output noises.

Keywords: biomechatronics; soft tissue; tissue indentation; vibration; tissue resonator indenter; viscoelastic properties; grey-box identification; prediction error method; simulation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBBR.2010.033028

International Journal of Biomechatronics and Biomedical Robotics, 2010 Vol.1 No.2, pp.104 - 114

Published online: 06 May 2010 *

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