A hand-held micro surgical device for contact force regulation against involuntary movements

Involuntary movements such as heart beating in surgical environment and surgeon's tremor disturb a micro surgical manipulation and cause a risk of patient wound. Although the delicate operation is performed by a skilled surgeon, the sensitivity of the surgeon is limited to quantify the range of safe contact forces. In this paper, we developed a compact hand-held surgical device to maintain a required contact force to maintain a required contact force using a custom force sensor and a linear delta mechanism. The custom optical force sensor measured the contact force of the device tip and the linear delta mechanism compensated undesired forces to maintain a consistent contact force. The proposed device is consisted of force sensing unit and actuating unit. The device was improved from our previous Linear Delta mechanism based prototype in terms of size, weight, and force sensing capability. The developed device was validated by investigation of contact force accuracy in a fixed condition and a hand-held condition. In hand-held condition, the visual feedback of the current contact force was provided, and the performance of the contact force regulation was investigated by comparing the root mean square (RMS) contact force errors and standard deviation in with and without control cases. The fluctuation (less than 50 mN) of the force regulation control of the device showed the feasibility of the device for the use in delicate operations.