Pneumatically driven handheld forceps with force display operated by motion sensor

Development of intuitive user interface of a dexterous forceps with wrist joint for minimally-invasive surgery (MIS) is important for reducing the surgeon's confusion and fatigue. In this paper, a wearable robotic forceps manipulator is proposed. By measuring the wrist attitude of the surgeon by a motion sensor and driving the forceps tip by actuators, intuitive operation is realized, compared with fully mechanical forceps. A compact and lightweight system is achieved since we adopt pneumatic actuators to drive the manipulator. In order to help the force sensing of the surgeon, the external force is measured from the air pressure and displayed in a visual way. Experimental comparison with a conventional handheld forceps and a teleoperation system is conducted and its results show the effectiveness of the proposed handheld forceps.