The design of insertion force measurement device for catheter operation surgery system's slave side

In the endovascular surgery, the master and slave catheter operation system benefits surgeons for it prevents them from X-ray exposure. However, the separated positions prevent the surgeons feel the catheter insertion force as if he or she threads the catheter directly into the patients. Thus, it's important to measure the proximal force on the slave side in order to feedback to master side's haptic device. For above consideration, we proposed a strain-gauges-based force measurement device which is suitable for our team developed slave side. The newly designed device is not only able to measure the catheter's inserting force but also can cooperate with slave side rotation mechanism to be a grasper. To calibrate the device, we adopt the loadcell as reference to derive the relationship between the force and strain gauges deformation change. Finally, in the experiment, we testified the device's measurement maximal error and range. The results indicate that the performance of this newly designed device is in the acceptable range.