A Study on the Dexterity of Surgical Robotic Tools in a Highly Immersive Virtual Environment Assessing Usability and Efficacy By Andrea Danioni, Gulfem Ceren Yavuz, Defne Ege Ozan, Elena De Momi, Anthony Koupparis, and Sanja Dogramadzi R obot-assisted minimally invasive surgery (RAMIS) has produced noticeable benefits for patients in the recent years [1], making it a favorable approach for a wide range of surgeries. The benefits of improving the dexterity of patient side manipulators to enable surgeons to perform more complex tasks are offset by the increased complexity of teleoperation and Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MRA.2022.3141972 Date of current version: 1 February 2022 68 * IEEE ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION MAGAZINE * MARCH 2022 cognitive and physical effort on the operator side typically. A right balance between higher dexterity and intuitive control in teleoperation is yet to be defined. In this study, a dexterous, anthropomorphic primary master controller was deployed to assess and compare the efficiency of simulated anthropomorphic surgical instruments in an immersive surgical concept. Virtual surgical training tasks were built using a gaming software engine (Unity) and performed using simulated surgical tools with extended degrees of freedom (DoF) in the surgical shaft and gripper and compared with This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. For more information, see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.ast. ©SHUTTERSTOCK.COM/ICO MAKERhttp://www.SHUTTERSTOCK.COM/ICO https://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.ast