Development of master-slave integrated haptic forceps based on bilateral control

In recent years, minimally invasive surgery (MIS) has been developed in medical field. MIS is performed by inserting some tools such as forceps into holes made on a patient's body. MIS requires surgeons of skills and experiences because of the limited space to operate tools and the slight tactile sensation which the operator can feel through the forceps. To improve the performance of surgeons, this paper proposes novel haptic forceps based on bilateral control. Conventional haptic forceps robots are composed of the master robot operated by the operator and the slave robot set on the remote place. In the case of the proposed forceps, the master and the slave are integrated into a pair of forceps. Experimental results show that the proposed forceps can be used as well as normal forceps. The scaling function which is useful for the delicate operation and the data acquisition for motion analysis are also realized in the proposed forceps.