Transmission and Reproduction of Force Sensation by Bilateral Control

Abstract

Minimally invasive surgery (MIS) which thinks a great deal of patient’s quality of life (QOL) has attracted attention during about ten years. In this paper, it aims at development of the technology for transmitting force sensation required in medical treatment especially through surgical instruments, such as forceps. In bilateral control, it is a problem how master and slave robots realize the law of action and reaction to the environment. Mechanism of contact with environment and bilateral controller based on stiffness are shown. Master arm in contact with human and slave arm in contact with environment are given compliance, and stable contact with environment can be realized. The proposed method is applied to 3-link master-slave manipulators. As a result, transmission and reproduction of force sensation can be realized. The experimental results show viability of the proposed method.