{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,11]],"date-time":"2026-03-11T17:11:22Z","timestamp":1773249082203,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":22,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"5","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2018,4,26]],"date-time":"2018-04-26T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1524700800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Sensors"],"abstract":"<jats:p>This paper presents new findings concerning a hand-held stiffness probe for the medical diagnosis of abnormalities during palpation of soft-tissue. Palpation is recognized by the medical community as an essential and low-cost method to detect and diagnose disease in soft-tissue. However, differences are often subtle and clinicians need to train for many years before they can conduct a reliable diagnosis. The probe presented here fills this gap providing a means to easily obtain stiffness values of soft tissue during a palpation procedure. Our stiffness sensor is equipped with a multi degree of freedom (DoF) Aurora magnetic tracker, allowing us to track and record the 3D position of the probe whilst examining a tissue area, and generate a 3D stiffness map in real-time. The stiffness probe was integrated in a robotic arm and tested in an artificial environment representing a good model of soft tissue organs; the results show that the sensor can accurately measure and map the stiffness of a silicon phantom embedded with areas of varying stiffness.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/s18051347","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2018,4,27]],"date-time":"2018-04-27T06:52:23Z","timestamp":1524811943000},"page":"1347","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":10,"title":["Real-Time Vision-Based Stiffness Mapping \u2020"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"18","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-8948-3592","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Angela","family":"Faragasso","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Precision Engineering, School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo, Hongo 7-3-1, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8656, Japan"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-4720-9026","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Jo\u00e3o","family":"Bimbo","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT), Via Morego, 30 16163 Genova, Italy"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-4904-0500","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Agostino","family":"Stilli","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Computer Science, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, UK"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-3082-146X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Helge Arne","family":"Wurdemann","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Mechanical Engineering, University College London, London WC1E 7JE, UK"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Kaspar","family":"Althoefer","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Centre for Advanced Robotics at Queen Mary (ARQ), Faculty of Science &amp; Engineering, Queen Mary University of London, Mile End Road, London E1 4NS, UK"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-9482-497X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Hajime","family":"Asama","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Precision Engineering, School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo, Hongo 7-3-1, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8656, Japan"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2018,4,26]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","first-page":"444","article-title":"A survey of simulators for palpation training","volume":"142","author":"Zhang","year":"2009","journal-title":"Stud. 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