Traditional surgical training faces challenges related to sustainability, cost, and ethical considerations. Limited access to resources, ethical concerns about cadaver-based learning, limited availability of surgical cases, and the high costs associated with hands-on training impede the effectiveness and accessibility of surgical education. Despite these challenges, the need for direct tactile experience remains critical, as it fosters the development of essential motor skills and tactile abilities vital for surgical practice. However, advancements in immersive technologies such as virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and haptics offer a promising solution to address these challenges. VR and AR technologies offer realistic, controlled environments where learners can visualise anatomical structures and practice surgical procedures without risks. The integration of haptic feedback in these immersive simulations further enriches the learning process by adding the sense of touch and physical interaction, aiding in mastering critical surgical skills. The incorporation of immersive technologies in surgical training presents an opportunity to address the constraints of conventional methods. These technologies offer the possibility of creating platforms that replicate real-life surgical scenarios, allowing learners to hone their skills and build confidence in a safe and controlled environment. Moreover, immersive learning offers an ethical alternative to cadaver-based training and extends access to training materials irrespective of geographical limitations. Such an approach allows for step-based training, where students may begin acquiring skills through immersive learning, then move to special surgical simulators, and finally to patients. This article deals with the impact of immersive technologies such as VR, AR, and haptics on reshaping conventional surgical training, by focusing specifically on basic surgical skills. Targeting educators, medical experts, and involved parties, the article aims to stimulate additional exploration and adoption of immersive technologies to elevate surgical competencies and patient care standards.

The exploration of city culture and heritage has gone through a fundamental transition in today's digital world, boosted by the introduction of extended Reality (XR) technologies such as Virtual Reality (VR), Mixed Reality (MR), and Augmented Reality (AR). These developments have provided new opportunities for individuals to profoundly engage with historical narratives and artistic expressions inherent in urban environments. Despite these technical advancements, a critical research gap remains in properly combining these immersive technologies with gamification principles to improve cultural exploration. This study seeks to fill this gap by studying the integration of gamification into XR settings, with the goal of increasing participant engagement, cooperation, and interaction while digging into the various layers of a city's history and artistic heritage. Two complementary use cases are presented: one centred on VR and the other on MR, both of which provide unique immersive experiences customised to exploring city culture. Gamification ideas are implemented into these use cases, with game elements used to encourage user involvement and participation within historical and artistic settings. Students are actively involved in the development of cultural heritage applications, highlighting the value of educational engagement. To assess the success and validity of this approach, a System Usability Scale (SUS) questionnaire is distributed to users participating in these immersive experiences. The survey findings evaluate user perceptions, satisfaction levels, and the effectiveness of gamification aspects in improving their understanding and connection to the city's heritage. The VR application received a score of 71.77 (out of 100), while the MR application received a score of 65.94 (out of 100), both being very close to the average SUS score of 68. Moreover, to improve the rigour of our evaluation, the User Engagement Scale (UES) is also incorporated. The UES results indicate that participants felt more immersed in the MR application (4.33) compared to the VR application (3.57). This difference may be attributed to the MR application's ability to integrate interactive elements with the real-world environment, enhancing the sense of presence and relevance for users. Both applications had similar perceived usability scores, while the MR app slightly outperformed the VR app in aesthetics and rewarding factors, suggesting a better overall user experience.

Collaborative robots (or cobots) are robots that are capable of safely operating in a shared environment or interacting with humans. In recent years, cobots have become increasingly common. Compliant actuators are critical in the design of cobots. In real applications, this type of actuation system may be able to reduce the amount of damage caused by an unanticipated collision. As a result, elastic joints are expected to outperform stiff joints in complex situations. In this work, the control of a 2-DOF robot arm with elastic actuators is addressed by proposing a two-loop adaptive controller. For the outer control loop, an adaptive sliding mode controller (ASMC) is adopted to deal with uncertainties and disturbance on the load side of the robot arm. For the inner loops, model reference adaptive controllers (MRAC) are utilised to handle the uncertainties on the motor side of the robot arm. To show the effectiveness of the proposed controller, extensive simulation experiments and a comparison with the conventional sliding mode controller (SMC) are carried out. As a result, the ASMC has a 50.35% lower average RMS error than the SMC controller, and a shorter settling time (5% criterion) (0.44 s compared to 2.11 s).

Traditional rigid joints exhibit good accuracy in position control but come at the expense of high interaction forces. Elastic joints, on the other hand, can limit the interaction forces but have poor position control accuracy and slow response times. Thus, combining both rigid and elastic joints in a robot arm can leverage their respective strengths while mitigating their weaknesses. In this paper, a mathematical model for a three degrees of freedom (DOFs) hybrid robotic arm with mixed rigid-elastic joints is introduced in detail. The first two joints are rigid, while the last one is elastic. The last joint is chosen to be elastic because it is the one that directly interacts with the environment, potentially including interactions with humans. This can help limit the interaction forces. Furthermore, an inverse dynamics control approach for this hybrid robotic arm is proposed. Finally, a simulation is carried out to demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed control algorithm.

Rigid joints are popular in traditional robotic manipulator designs due to their fast-response ability and high position control precision, while elastic joints are well known for their safety. Robotic manipulators using both rigid and elastic joints are developed to harness the benefits and mitigate the drawbacks of these joint types. The integration of mixed rigid-elastic joints in robotic manipulators offers significant potential for enhancing adaptability, precision, and resilience in dynamic and unstructured environments. This approach is particularly advantageous in applications that demand a balance between strength and compliance. This paper presents a systematic, tutorial-like approach to modelling and analysis of robotic manipulators with mixed rigid-elastic joints. Firstly, the dynamic equations are developed using the Lagrangian method. In this paper, the constraint on motor positions is relaxed, which means the motors can be placed on any link on the robotic manipulator. In addition, properties of the mathematical model, including skew-symmetry and linearity with respect to dynamic parameters, are presented. The representation of the dynamic matrices and vectors with respect to the dynamic parameters is introduced. Secondly, the recursive Newton-Euler algorithm is adopted to derive the model of robots with mixed rigid-elastic joints. An inverse dynamic algorithm is presented to calculate the forces/torques from the provided accelerations, velocities, and positions of the joints. Then, a forward dynamic algorithm is proposed to calculate the accelerations, velocities, and positions of the joints from the provided forces/torques. In addition, the impact of varying joint stiffness and the placement of elastic joints is analysed. Finally, an example and simulation are provided to demonstrate the modelling process of robotic manipulators with mixed rigid-elastic joints.