A master manipulator with a remote‐center‐of‐motion kinematic structure for a minimally invasive robotic surgical system

Abstract

BACKGROUND: In robotic surgical systems, commercial master devices have limitations owing to insufficient workspace and lack of intuitiveness. To overcome these limitations, a remote-center-of-motion (RCM) master manipulator was proposed. METHODS: The feasibility of the proposed RCM structure was evaluated through kinematic analysis using a conventional serial structure. Two performance comparison experiments (peg transfer task and objective transfer task) were conducted for the developed master and Phantom Omni. RESULTS: The kinematic analysis results showed that compared with the serial structure, the proposed RCM structure has better performance in terms of design efficiency (19%) and workspace quality (59.08%). Further, in comparison with Phantom Omni, the developed master significantly increased task efficiency and significantly decreased workload in both experiments. CONCLUSIONS: The comparatively better performance in terms of intuitiveness, design efficiency, and operability of the proposed master for a robotic system for minimally invasive surgery was confirmed through kinematic and experimental analysis.