Surgeons training on virtual patients will soon be able to smell rosemary and lavender while they practise, as part of a new multisensory telesurgery training system. Current surgical training relies heavily on vision and touch, but the sense of smell remains largely unused in virtual environments. MUXNET aims to fill this gap by combining a novel 9-degree-of-freedom haptic glove with olfactory stimuli—specifically rosemary and lavender—to improve cognitive processing during remote surgical training. The project also explores how multisensory extended reality (XR) and telecommunications can complement medical workers’ skills, rather than replace them. If successful, the training framework could make remote surgical practice more immersive and effective, potentially accelerating skill acquisition for surgeons who cannot access physical operating theatres. The project also aims to produce policy recommendations for integrating such technologies into European medical training systems. By enabling collaboration between the UK and Turkey, MUXNET could help standardise multisensory XR training across borders, improving resource sharing and community building in the medical sector.
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MUXNET explores how the innovative combination of telesurgery with multisensory XR and telecommunication technologies can be used to complement medical workers’ skills and what policy recommendations should be adopted within the European medical sector. To this end, the proposed project will explore a novel training framework that involves enabling technologies centered on multisensory extended reality (XR) and telecommunications in the context of telesurgery. Hence, in this context, MUXNET will not only incorporate a novel 9 degrees of freedom (9-DoF) haptic glove but also additionally explore the effectiveness of the olfactory modality in XR by harnessing the power of aromas such as rosemary and lavender to benefit cognitive processing, and consequently, enhance learning and training. Using tactile and visual senses to experience first-hand activities in a distant setting is a relatively new field, but the addition of olfactory stimuli not just to heighten the learning experience of medical professionals, but also to enhance the immersive nature of telesurgery training makes the project a total game changer in the area of multisensory XR. The training outcomes of using such innovative technologies will thus be explored with a view to ensuring their sustainable and wide adoption in the medical sector and defining policies regarding Digital Citizens 2.0. Accordingly, MUXNET adopts an approach whereby training is formulated as a result of experiences gained exploring novel applications of existing cutting-edge technologies in hitherto unexplored scenarios in the medical sector. In so doing, MUXNET enables collaboration, resource sharing, and community building between UK and Turkey.
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