A tele-microsurgery system that shows what the user wants to see

This paper describes a system with which a surgery can easily execute a surgical operation by reducing the surgical motions that would have required in the normal human world scale. The system can also be operated from a remote location using, for example, the Internet. In particular, a vision system having a fixed visual point and a slave manipulator which has the same fixed point at the end of the tool, are proposed. In the vision system, the axes of all rotational degrees of freedom (DOF) intersect at the focal point of the microscope. The visual information acquisition and display systems are controlled by the operator. In the slave manipulator, the axes of all rotational DOF, also intersect at this point. These mechanisms provide high accessibility to small objects, independent of the approach angle from the microscope and the manipulator to the object. Another feature of the system is the transformation of multi-axis force to auditory information to enhance the operability of the system. Furthermore, the design of the system allows for the development of a rotational-force-feedback-free master manipulator.